“The historian Yitzhak Schipper, who was writing a book on the Khazars while he was an inmate of the Warsaw ghetto, was asked how he did his work without being able to sit and research in the appropriate libraries. ‘To write history,’ he answered, ‘you need a head, not an ass.’” — from Alberto Manguel’s The Library at Night, pp. 241-42.
CVA 99-2590 – Radio produced by Zenith Engraving Co. Stuart Thomson photo. 1931.
From the early ‘20s until the ‘50s, it was the law of the land that you had to get a yearly license and pay a fee to own a radio. And if you didn’t get a license, you could expect a radio inspector to come to your door and demand to see it. And if you failed to produce it, you could go to court where you would be expected to pay court costs and a fine. Why all the fuss over such an inoffensive piece of equipment, you ask? Goodquestion!
Starting in 1922, when radios were gradually becoming popular, a radio license and a yearly fee of $1 was required by the federal Department of Marine and Fisheries (later, radios came under the aegis of the Department of Transport). You were expected to buy a license when purchasing a radio set and then pay the fee again each fiscal year on April 1 for as long as you owned the radio. Early on, only “British subjects” were entitled to own a radio. This was soon reversed, however.*
The feds began to prosecute people in Vancouver (and elsewhere in the country) who did not have a radio license. The first person to be charged in Vancouver was Fred May. He was let off with a warning and court costs of $2.50. Four other Vancouver residents were charged a short time later. Those four were also let off easy, but the magistrate made it clear that in future, “delinquents” would face fines. In 1932, the radio license fee was doubled — to $2.
The license fee seemed arbitrary and unfair. In 1927, a Vancouver resident charged with not taking out a radio license was fined $7.50. While five motorists charged with driving their cars without proper lighting were fined just $2.50 each (Province, March 2, 1927).
In 1934, the feds launched about 65 prosecutions in Vancouver and fines of $3.50 and $5.00 were imposed. In the subsequent year, Vancouverites didn’t seem to have learned much from these actions; about 10,000 fewer licenses than were issued in 1935 than had been issued in 1934. Because of this, in 1935, the feds entered several homes on the strength of search warrants, seizing radio equipment and imposing $50 fines.
In 1936, it was announced that a single $2 license would cover a radio listener who had a radio in their home and another in their car. At last, a reasonable decision! However, the feds changed their tune two years later. In 1938, it was announced that the rule of one fee covering both a home set and an automobile set would be reversed and, furthermore, the annual fee was raised to $2.50.
There were a significant number of radio listeners who did not license their radios and pay the required fee over the years. And this continued up to 1953, when the license/fee was finally abolished. The revenue collected by the feds on license fees was estimated to be at least $1.5 million.
How could this yearly license fee be justified? In the 1920s and into the ‘30s, so few people owned radios, that it was considered something of a privilege. In September 1921, the number of radio licenses that had been purchased in Vancouver was a puny 110, This out of a city population of about 117,000. Thus less than 1% of Vancouver’s population had radios. While in 1931, the number of radios was about 200,100. Given the city’s population in that year of 308,000, about 2/3 of Vancouver residents owned radios. It was no longer a privilege.
So, by the late 1930s, the justification of steadily higher fees shifted. CBC radio had come into being and since the CBC was from the start a mix of on-air commercials and taxed support, the license fees were seen as vital to support the CBC.
But, in the end, it was plainly a tax grab and the people of Vancouver and Canada could see it for what it was.
Notes
*By 1927, the CNIB (Canadian National Institute for the Blind) proved to be an effective lobby group, as they succeeded in getting the license and fee waived for all blind people. Just why blind people ought to be exempt isn’t obvious to me. This was the only group that I’m aware of that was successful in getting the license/fee waived.
Mike Taylor (as he was known by virtually everyone during his long career in Vancouver), was a jazz musician who played piano, organ, and electronic keyboards here from ca1959 until the early ‘80s. After he left the city for Greater L.A., however, he was largely ignored in the press and he died quietly in 2017 in Banning, CA. This post is a tribute to Mike, his music, and some of the clubs that he played in while he was here.
Personal
Gordon Melvin Hoytt (Mike) Taylor (1932-2017) was born in Long Beach, California. He was a Black American and a veteran of the Korean War in which he had the rank of Private First Class. He married his first wife, Joyce Gloria King (1936-2015) a Black Canadian, in Seattle in 1953. Joyce was 17; he was 21. They had 9 kids together until they divorced ca1969. In the early 1970s, Mike met Patricia Ricci (1948-2020). Patricia was born in Paris and grew up in Marseilles. The two eventually married. It was a second marriage for both of them.*
The 1940 US census found Gordon living with his sister, Patricia (who was about a year younger) and his great-grandmother, Anna Starr, in L.A. However, by 1950, he was living with his mother, Rosebud, and stepfather, Leonard Claussen, also in L.A. It is difficult to know where Taylor got his piano training, but I suspect it was a combination of natural talent, private lessons, and the legendary US high school band system which has been responsible for helping many American professional musicians on their way.
He seemed to ‘test the waters’ as a professional jazz musician in Portland, Oregon in the last couple years of the 1950s. This was the first place that I found evidence in the press of him playing professionally and dropping his slightly nerdy birth names to become just “Mike Taylor”. At first, he didn’t identify himself as having a trio under his new name, however. He was just part of a combo of three jazz musicians during much of his time in Portland. But in April 1958, Taylor played the Majestic Theatre in Vancouver as “the Mike Taylor Trio.” His trio was truly his. It was time to move himself and Joyce to Vancouver.
Live Gigs at Various Clubs in Vancouver
By the early 1960s, he had moved to Vancouver from the US Pacific Northwest, and by 1961, the Mike Taylor Trio was playing The Espresso (652 Howe) and towards the end of the year, the Cellar (rear entrance, 222 E Broadway); the Cellar was still advertising Taylor as being “direct from L.A.” in 1963! At the end of ’63 and the start of ’64, the Mike Taylor Trio was at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre Restaurant (Cambie and Georgia) and also played Sunday nights at the New Delhi Cabaret (544 Main). The Trio played at The End (726 Seymour – beneath the Quadra Club), in 1964 as part of “The End All-Stars”, which included the Fraser McPherson Quartette.
Early 1965 saw the Mike Taylor Trio operating at The Inn (726 Seymour – The Inn was apparently the new name of The End). The Trio wrapped up ’65 at the New Delhi Cabaret and played there well into ’66. They wrapped up 1966 at the Kit Kat Club (138 E Hastings). Early in 1967, Taylor was playing Jiggs Place (which replaced The Inn at 726 Seymour). Later in that year, the Taylor Trio was playing the midnight to 4 a.m. shift at the Bunkhouse (612 Davie).
In mid-1968, Taylor’s group was performing at the Factory (1042 Davie, on the same block as the Retinal Circus). His group was then briefly known as “The Mike Taylor Plus” instead of the Trio. Near the end of the year, Taylor’s group was playing at Jazz Alley (near Main and Broadway). At the end of ’68 and early ’69, Taylor’s group was playing the Riverqueen (1043 Davie – just across the street from the Factory).
In the early ’70s, Taylor played at the (inaptly named) Sahara Supper Club, located in Gastown at 110 Water Street, and at the Club Diner (Hastings and Boundary). He was on the organ at Cyrano’s Grill at the Biltmore Hotel (12th Avenue at Kingsway) and also played Oil Can Harry’s (752 Thurlow). He also opened the new club called the Carioca (571 Seymour), which seemed to last no more than a year, and also played the Nucleus (595 Beatty) and The Classical Joint (231 Carrall).
In the mid-70s, the Mike Taylor Trio was at The Egress (739 Beatty Street), Le Chat Noir (95 Powell), the Caribbean Queen (445. W 9th Avenue), the Tack Room at the St. Regis Hotel (Dunsmuir and Seymour), at 12 Caesars (595 Hornby), and at the Hot Jazz Society (36 E Broadway).
Patricia Taylor in early 1980s.
In the late ‘70s, Taylor played City Stage (751 Thurlow), Sands Travelodge (1755 Davie), and the CPR Station Concourse (Cordova at Seymour) – aka today as Waterfront Station.
In 1982, Taylor was playing the Cafe New York (1636 Robson). And then he left Vancouver for Quebec City, where he played for a couple of years at a club called Le Jazze. After finishing his stint in Quebec, he came back to Vancouver – briefly – and then he and Patricia and their kids, Gabriel and Stella, headed for L.A., where he played principally, it seems, at Riccio’s in Palm Springs from 1992-94. He probably played in other locations over his years in Greater L.A in the 1990s and early 2000s, but I’m not aware of them (and they aren’t the focus of this post).
The Mike Taylor Trio wasn’t by any means the same three men for all gigs. Taylor’s Vancouver sidemen included, over the years: Gavin Walker (sax), Martell Singleterry (percussion), Albert St. Albert (percussion), Billy Taylor (bass), John Nolan (percussion), Patience Higgins (reeds; flutes), Bob Murphy (keyboards), Al Wold (sax), Wyatt Ruther (bass), Blaine Wikjord (percussion), Rick Kilburn (bass), Listen Pickering (percussion), Dave Field (bass), Lionel Mitchell (sax), and Chuck Logan (percussion).
Jablu After Hours Club
The Bunkhouse also was Taylor’s first venture into club management in Vancouver. The Riverqueen was his second club management experience in the city. In his bank proposal for the Jablu After Hours Club, he mentioned that he’d “been instrumental in the starting of a similar place” in Portland, 20 years prior, but I couldn’t find any evidence of that.
Taylor launched Jablu in 1976. It was located beneath the Royal Canadian Legion at 1333 Burrard Street and was open Monday through Saturday from 11pm to 6am. The landlord of Jablu was Commercial Electronics, which had its store just down the block.
Jablu was an after-hours club with a “home-cooked soul food” eatery as part of it, under the direction of Taylor’s soon-to-be wife, Patricia Ricci, who, although she was born and raised in France, was reputedly an amazing soul food cook. The menu included black-eyed peas, chili con carne, BBQ chicken, and the signature Jablu Burger.
Jablu was forced to close in 1977 when Commercial Electronics, their landlord, decided to expand into Jablu’s space and so didn’t renew their lease.
In case you’re wondering, “Jablu” was created from the first few letters of the words “jazz” and “blues”!
Recordings
To the best of my knowledge, Taylor’s first recording was made in 1968. It was a production of Irena Hodgson to memorialize the lives of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Bobby Kennedy. The costs associated with the recording were pared to the bone – it cost only $36 to produce and just five records were made. One copy of the record was sent to each of the widows, one went to a radio station, and two were kept by Hodgson. Mike Taylor and Ronnie Small helped Hodgson to improve the music and lyrics and the two men were featured on the recording. One of the tunes was called River Bank and on the flip side was The Kennedy Clan.
Taylor’s second album, called Brute Force, was produced in 1976. There are just six cuts on this album, including “Brute Force” (Taylor), “Black Thunder” (Taylor) and “Up in Gavin’s Flat” (Gavin Walker). The remaining three are all jazz standards: “Lover Man,” (Davis) “Too Old to Dream,” (Romberg) and “For All We Know” (Coots). Artists included, addition to Taylor, Gavin Walker (alto sax), Martell Singleterry (drums), and Albert St. Albert (congas). So the Brute Force players were actually a quartette, not a trio. This record was produced by Don Marsh and was recorded at Stoney Productions Studios (North Vancouver).
Why Not Now… (1981) was a solo album of Taylor’s and included music that was principally his own. The only tunes that were by someone other than him were “Ain’t Misbehavin’” (Waller), “Stella by Starlight” (Young), and “I’ll Remember April” (Johnson). This recording was produced by Jablu Enterprises (a Taylor-owned business) and was recorded at Pinewood Studios (Vancouver). This would be Taylor’s final album.
Finale
The bio for the Brute Force website sums up Taylor’s playing well: “Mike Taylor is one of those solid 1940s jazz pianists with a bricklaying left hand and a daring, dexterous right that fills in all the remaining cracks . . . .The pop songs are sensitive and the blues full; both swing heartily.”
Notes
*I am indebted to Linda Dorricott for all of her assistance with many details about the Taylors and the Jablu After Hours Club. She was a friend of the couple and a close friend of Patricia Taylor. She was also a waitress at Jablu. I am also appreciative of Robert Moen’s amazing genealogical research. Without his help, it is doubtful that I would ever have discovered Mike’s birth names or the name of his first wife. And many thanks also go to Neil Whaley for his research help with this post.
CVA 800-0648 Granville Mall Construction. The space that would become the Mall Book Bazaar is on the far right and has a “LEASED” sign in the window. April 1974.
One of seven bookmarks designed for the Mall Book Bazaar by Conan Hunter, son of former Greenpeace President, Bob Hunter.
The Mall Book Bazaar could only have been the MALL Book Bazaar with the action of Vancouver City Hall and funding from all three levels of government. The notion of creating a pedestrian mall out of downtown Granville Street had been batted around since the 1960s, but it wasn’t until the election of Mayor Art Phillips that the idea gained enough political traction that it became a reality.
In 1974, the street between Nelson and Hastings underwent extensive construction, which included significant widening of sidewalks, and installation of park benches and trees. When construction was complete, the traffic lanes would be for transit buses only*.The photo above shows this construction ongoing in front of the east side of 800 block Granville Street — where the Mall Book Bazaar would be when it opened 7 months after this photo was made.
The Mall Book Bazaar (850 Granville) was established by Julian (Buddy) Smith (1928-2019) in November 1974. Smith and his family had been in the book trade for a number of years. His Dad, Harry Smith, was a notable book wholesaler. Julian himself had opened a chain of 10 stores in B.C., Alberta, and Saskatchewan called Julian Books a couple of years prior to opening the Book Bazaar. The Julian bookstores were sold off in 1975/76. (A side note: One of the Julian stores in Edmonton was sold in 1975 to Audrey Whaley (1924-2019) and became possibly the most iconic bookshop in that city: AudreysBooks (1975 – )).
Smith owned the Mall Book Bazaar but he let others manage it. The managers included Richard Harper, who had worked earlier at DuthieBooks (1957-2010). Harper was also a Vancouver poet who gave readings of his work at local venues, such as Richard PenderBooks (1974-1975). Harper retired from the Book Bazaar sometime in 1977 and was replaced by Walter Sinclair. Sinclair continued as manager until late in 1977 when he quit to open White Dwarf Books (1978- ), a sci-fi shop on West 10th, together with his partner, Jill Sanagan, who had also worked at the Book Bazaar.** The final Mall Book Bazaar manager was Jim Allan, who took over in 1978 or ‘79. Allan had been the assistant paperback manager at Duthie Books and prior to that had been a co-proprietor of Retinal Circus; he booked such acts as The Grateful Dead and The Doors.
The Mall Book Bazaar was a relatively small, narrow space (having less than 250 square metres versus Duthie’s downtown shop which had 355) (Sun, March 11, 1995). There were hardcovers and trade paperbacks on the right; paperback fiction, periodicals and newspapers on the left. On the mezzanine level, from 1984 onward, there was the computer/technical section; computer magazines were upstairs, too. According to long-time staffer, Rod Clarke, two sections drove sales: computer/technical books and mags and science fiction/fantasy books.***
An important part of the Book Bazaar’s success was the vibrant street scene. Most important was the Commodore Ballroom, located just above the bookshop and a bit to the south. When music groups were playing the Commodore in the 1970s (and later), the windows in the bookshop below would shake in their casements. And in the afternoons, during sound checks, the staff and customers in the shop would have to endure loud repetitions of “TEST! 1, 2, 3”. “The ‘OOMPAH, OOMPAH’ sound of Octoberfest and perennial acts like Queen Ida or any Zedeco band, for that matter,” is imprinted on Clarke’s memory. Clarke recalls Pete Seeger coming into the shop; and he also remembers meeting punk rocker Henry Rollins, David Lee Roth, Ornette Coleman, Billy Bragg, and Exene Cervenka. The Commodore was, indeed, part of the ambience of the Mall Book Bazaar.
The bookshop kept unconventional hours, by the standards of most booksellers. It was open 7 nights a week until midnight starting in 1979; prior to that it was open until 10p.m. The provincial Holiday Shopping Regulation Act, which came into force on January 1, 1981, prohibited shops from opening on the Sabbath and other statutory holidays. Book Bazaar manager, Jim Allan, noted that there were at least three grounds on which the Book Bazaar could legally remain open on Sundays, under the Act: 1) the Book Bazaar offered educational materials for sale; 2) there were periodicals and newspapers on the premises; and 3) they conducted live performances (Sun, Jan 5, 1981). Any one of these three should have exempted the shop from the terms of the Act.
The shop had live performances in the form of poetry and prose readings, beginning in 1981. In the early ‘80s, a regular reader was local poet Gerry Gilbert (1936-2009). He’d offer poetry readings every other hour from 1p.m. to 9p.m. on Sundays. When Gilbert wasn’t performing, he’d introduce other poets and lead discussions on poetry. Nevertheless, in January 1981, Scott Sunderland of the Mall Book Bazaar was charged under the Holiday Act. Duthie’s was also charged under the Act, but they won a stay in Vancouver’s by-law court. (Sun, Jan 29, 1981; Province, June 25, 1981). Presumably, the Mall Book Bazaar similarly won a stay, as the shop continued to remain open on Sundays, without further legal fuss.
The Book Bazaar was at the heart of Vancouver’s ’70s nightlife. There were the nearby theatres (such as the Capitol, Coronet, and Orpheum) and record shops (such as A&A Records and Tapes, Odyssey Imports, and A&B Sound) all of which were within easy walking distance. Also nearby were some good restaurants, including Mr. Mike’s Steakhouse and Rubin’s Deli, which were popular spots for bookshop staff on their hour-long lunch breaks and also for late-night snacks.
Linda Dorricott remembers that she would frequently go to an after-hours club called Jablu after finishing her night shift at the Mall Book Bazaar. Jablu was in operation in 1976-77 and was a source of good jazz and soul food from 11p.m to 6a.m. It was run by local jazz pianist, Mike Taylor (1932-2017), and was located at 1333 Burrard (Province, July 23, 1976). Mike was in charge of the jazz; his wife, Patricia (1948-2020), of the soul food.**
Granville Book Company viewed from the mezzanine at the back of the store and looking towards the front of the bookshop. Nick Didlick photo. Vancouver Sun, December 5, 1992.
Julian Smith closed the Mall Book Bazaar in January 1986. He said that the business hadn’t lost money, but the profits were too small to justify keeping it going, in his view. But most of the employees disagreed, and with Smith’s help, they formed an employees’ co-op which assumed the lease and bought the bookstore’s fixtures from Smith for a dollar (Sun, Feb 6, 1986). The manager at the time of the Bazaar’s closure, Jim Allan, had 50% of shares in the co-op, and other employees split the remaining shares among themselves, as they could afford them; the name of the shop was changed and it re-opened as Granville Book Company in February 1986. The principals were (in addition to manager, Jim Allan): Rebecca Turner (“the thread that held the fabric of the shop together”, in Clarke’s words), Bob Cole (a war resister; he passed away in December 2014), Rod Clarke, and Michael McCord (who moved to Ottawa shortly after the conversion of the Mall Book Bazaar to Granville Book Company).
Some staffers of Granville Book Company. L-R: Bob Cole (with beard), Michael McCord, John Davenport, Rod Clarke, Jim Allan, and Rebecca Turner. Dan Scott photo. Vancouver Sun, Feb 6, 1986.
One of the great strengths and weaknesses of the bookshop (under both names) was its static-ness, its consistency over the years. The general layout never changed; it was very much the same shop to all appearances over all its years. The bookshop never sold any used books until its final year of operation. Ironically, the last book sold by the Granville Book Company was a used one: StephenLeacock‘sCanada: The Foundations ofits Future.
By the early 2000s, the rent for the Granville Book Company was sky-high at about $10,000 per month. By 2005, the shop was no longer viable. It was in debt to the tune of well over $50,000. On July 6 of that year, the Granville Book Company closed its doors for good; the bookshop was bankrupt. Clarke remembers the date because the next morning came the news of the London subway bombing, 7/7.
The two bookstores, taken together had lasted more than 30 years, which is no small accomplishment for independent bookshops. It’s hard to believe that the shop has been gone for nearly 20 years, now.
Notes
*Longtime staffer at the shop, Bob Cole, was a passionate advocate at City Council meetings for keeping the sidewalks wide and for retaining the mall for bus and foot traffic only — not automobiles!
**Thanks to Linda Dorricott, a staffer at the Mall Book Bazaar in 1977, for her memories of some of the managers of the shop and of Jablu, the after-hours jazz club.
Clarke in 1984 after a midnight shift at Granville Book Company. Mark Stafford photo.
***I’m grateful for an extended conversation with Rod Clarke and for his recollections of the Mall Book Bazaar and the Granville Book Company. Clarke was a staff member in both firms, for a total of 25 years. He will be familiar to Vancouver bookstore lovers as one of the staffers at MacLeod’s Books (455 West Pender) for eight years after Granville Book Company closed, and as one of two proprietors, along with Kim Koch, at The Paper Hound bookshop (344 West Pender), since then.
Leo Nicholson was best known in Vancouver as a stellar radio sports announcer. But there was more to Nicholson than just sports. He was, among other things, a famous kids program host on radio CJOR, popularly known as “Big Brother Bill”.
CVA 99-4025. 1931 Big Brother Bill picnic trip to White Rock along with 125 kids. Big Brother Bill, aka Leo Nicholson, is in the middle of the three gents in white slacks standing in front of the first bus. The bus was parked just across from where the Wedgewood Hotel is today on Hornby near Robson.
Lionel Edward (Leo) Nicholson was born in Winnipeg in 1894 to Edward Nicholson and Madge Ingo. Leo’s sister was Mae. Their father was wealthy enough to be able to indulge his two kids in music lessons (violin for Leo), extensive travel, and private boarding schools in the U.S.
In 1916, Leo enlisted in the Royal Naval Air Service and became a fighter pilot. He managed to live through the Great War and returned to Winnipeg upon demobilization with an English bride, an actress known by her stage name as Lillian Rich.
Lillian Rich, Free Press Evening. Bulletin. March 17, 1928.
In 1919, Lillian and Leo moved to Hollywood to further her silent film career. Leo worked as Lillian’s manager, as a real estate broker and also as a radio announcer for football games in Los Angeles (LA Times Jan 30, 1921).
In 1930, Leo moved back to Canada, this time to Vancouver. By 1931, he had found radio work with CJOR. It isn’t clear whose idea it was for him to produce and host a children’s program (I suspect it was his) but in any case, he became “Big Brother Bill” in Vancouver every weeknight at 5.15 for 30 minutes of entertainment by musically and theatrically talented kids for kids.
A personnel manager today wouldn’t see a natural ‘fit’ between Nicholson’s background as a fighter pilot, manager of a Hollywood starlet, and radio football announcer when hiring him for a kids talent program. But he proved to be well suited to the position and Big Brother Bill became an institution in Vancouver between 1931-36.
In addition to the daily radio program, there was also Big Brother Bill’s School of Music, Dance and Drama held in the Alexandra Ballroom to “prepare the child for radio and stage work” (Sun, Oct 24, 1931). The kids from the school were recruited for matinee performances at some of the neighbourhood theatres such as Stanley and Windsor Theatres. Nicholson also worked with the Vancouver Sun Santa Claus Fund and other charitable causes under the Big Brother Bill name.
Sun. Feb 8, 1937. I guess Lux Toilet Soap didn’t get the memo! This was published a few months after most media had stopped referring to Leo as BigBrother Bill.
Oddly, Nicholson also became involved, under the Big Brother Bill moniker, with an offer of 10 adults–only ballroom dancing lessons for $2 at Lester Court. “Enroll now with Big Brother Bill, Radio Station CJOR” (Sun, Feb 6, 1932). By 1934, Nicholson was doing baseball play-by-plays under the Big Brother Bill name, also for (mainly male, one assumes) adults: “our entertaining radio chucker of verbal pictures whom you mostly listen to those nights you have to stay home to mind the kid…” (Sun, July 14, 1934)
In July 1932, Lillian divorced Leo (Victoria Daily Times July 11, 1932). By 1935, Nicholson married Marjorie Taaffe (Sun Nov 9, 1935). He didn’t have any kids of his own either by Lillian or Marjorie.
By 1936, it seemed that Nicholson had shaken the Big Brother Bill name for his blossoming sports announcing career when it was stated in the Sun that “Leo Nicholson, ace sports announcer”, would be heard over Radio CJOR for the Box Lacrosse (Boxla) game that night (Sun Oct 2, 1936). Nicholson became known for making lacrosse in Vancouver (in his words) ‘the fastest game on two feet’ with his rapid-fire announcing.
Sun. Apr 30, 1938.
Veteran local sports columnist, Jim Coleman, described Nicholson’s announcing style this way in 1990: “Leo damn nearly ruptured his vocal cords as he described the action. Yelping into his microphone, he was Excitement Personified and his dynamic description of the games took the city by storm” (Province Feb 19, 1990).1
In 1941, Nicholson answered the call from the NHL’s Montreal Canadiens to head east to do the play-by-play of their home games. He did that for a year, but in 1942, finding that he missed Vancouver, he returned. He signed on with CKMO upon arriving here, and announced ‘every sports event that has a book of rules’ (his words, allegedly), from bike races to wrestling, to boxing, softball, and golf, and nearly everything in between.
Leo died in 1947 from pulmonary tuberculosis. He was 53. To this day, the Leo Nicholson Memorial Trophy is presented annually to the best goalkeeper in the Western Association of Lacrosse. The Big Brother Bill program was replaced by another similar program on CJOR in 1937. It was called the Uncle Mickey Club, with Michael O’Brien (Sun, Dec 8, 1937). But it didn’t have the same shine as Big Brother Bill and went off the air within a couple of years.
Notes:
1It’s little wonder that Nicholson advocated taking Vaseline orally. Although that isn’t recommended today:
In mid-December in the middle of the 20th century, Vancouver suffered from temporary insanity (in my opinion) and set 8,000 “crime, horror, and sex” comic books alight in Strathcona Park, which at the time was known as False Creek Park.
The project was the brainchild of the Victoria and Vancouver Junior Chambers of Commerce — aka, the Jaycees. In exchange for any 10 crime, horror, or sex comics, a child would receive one hardcover children’s classic (one exchange per child, please) (Province, Nov 12, 1954). The exchange would happen earlier in the month of December. Then, on December 11th, the comics would be taken, under police guard (!) to False Creek Park, where Mayor Fred Hume was to start the bonfire (Province, Dec 9, 1954).
As the date approached, a couple of things changed. Victoria’s Jaycees withdrew their original commitment to having a fire. They decided to go ahead with the book exchange and they would still destroy the comics, but they wouldn’t publicly burn the comic books (Vancouver Sun, Nov 25, 1954) . Vancouver’s Jaycees, in contrast, would go ahead with their bonfire, but instead of the book exchange happening at the public library branches in the city, as was originally proposed by the Jaycees, it would take place at a local hall. The Chief Librarian of VPL, Edgar S. Robinson, didn’t want the library to be at all associated with burning books (Vancouver Sun, Nov 25, 1954). As a United Church minister said at the time — I think accurately — “Book burning has an historically bad odour” (Province, Nov 18, 1954). The Vancouver Sun came down on the side of VPL and the minister and found the odour associated with book burning to be foul (Vancouver Sun. Nov 27, 1954).
What were these comic books that the Vancouver Jaycees were so worked up about? There was no mention in the press as to which comics were defined by the Jaycees to be “crime, horror and sex”. Presumably, they believed that you’d know one if you saw it! If it were a choice between Brenda Starr and Dennis the Menace, I think I know how I’d choose. But if I were asked to decide between Blue Beetle and Wonder Woman, I’m not sure which one I’d declare clean and which dirty.
The Province considered the Vancouver book burning to be a success. Despite miserable weather, 200 adults showed up for the burn. Fred Hume, however, probably wisely chose to send a substitute alderman to light the fire (Province, Dec 13, 1954).
There has never been a repeat in Vancouver, as far as I know, of such a public book burning event. Once seems like more than enough.
This bookmark was a gift from a friend, Neil Whaley, who is aware of my affection for ephemera of First Baptist Church, Vancouver. This was produced near the end of the term of minister J. J. Ross. Sunday School Superintendent at the time the bookmark was produced was Bert Pinder.
The Pledge of Love for Mother’s Day strikes me as odd. In fact, it seems to me that it is more “Mom-ology” as opposed to good Baptist the-ology–or, at least anything I recognize today as Baptist theology!
The image at left came from one of the proprietors of The Paper Hound Bookshop, Rod Clarke. Rod and his business partner, Kim Koch, kindly keep their eyes peeled for bookstore-related items that I can use in VAIW posts. This item surfaced when Rod was making a decision about whether or not to buy a single volume of Tolstoy’s CompleteWorks. Because it was just a solitary volume, he chose not to purchase it for Paper Hound, but he had the presence of mind to take a picture of the title page with the stamp showing “new age bookshop [and] lending library”.1 He shared the image with me. Neither of us had heard of this shop before, so it certainly seemed worthy of a historical scrounge!
The shop lasted for only four years (1936-1940) at three locations.
In 1936-37, the bookstore was at the SE corner of Pender and Homer at 350 West Pender, (just steps from what would become, decades later, the home of Paper Hound). The original proprietor was a former sheet metal worker named Thomas R. O’Brien, who was in his early 30s at the time he ran the bookshop (Sun 25 Apr 1936).
CVA 1095-11338. 350 West Pender at Homer. The New Age Book Shop was located on the corner of the Victoria Block above. 1973.
Thanks to an astute reporter with the Sun, there is a record of some of the titles in the shop in Spring ‘36: Gorky’s Days with Lenin; Tretyakov’s Roar China; Social Planning for Canada by the League of Social Reconstruction; and Strachey’s The Nature of the Capitalist Crisis. Also in the shop were Herbert Spencer’s Autobiography and Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward as well as works by Henri Barbusse, Michael Gold (Isaac Granich’s pen name), and Anna Louise Strong. Not forgetting, of course, Leon Tolstoy’s War and Peace and others of his oeuvre. Said O’Brien in ‘36: “I intend to stock Social Credit literature and books on Technocracy; in fact examples of all the progressive trends of thought” (Sun, 25 Apr 1936). Whether most of us today would consider “Social Credit literature” to be “progressive” is an open question.
The shop plainly had a Communist perspective. O’Brien made the point that the store wasn’t an organ of the Communist Party of Canada: “[I]t’s a private venture, although I imagine the Communists wouldn’t disapprove of it” (Sun 25 Apr 1936). O’Brien may have been shading the truth a bit with that statement, however. By 1940, the then-owner admitted that one of the shop’s “creditors” was the New Era Publishing Company of Toronto which was backed by the Communist Party (Province 23 Sep 1940).
CVA 1095-10634. The bookstore seems to have been, in 1938-39 above where Steams Hot Dogs was in this image. In the “Revival Centre”. 1969.
In 1938-39, the shop was located at 50-A East Hastings. The ownership of the shop also changed; instead of O’Brien it was run by C. (probably Carl) Schwartz.
In 1940, the shop changed hands and locations one last time. It moved into the Flack block at 14-163 West Hastings under the management of Wilfred F. Ravenor. He was an inventor of some local fame in the 1920s for producing the Ravenor Liquid Hearth, an efficient tool for heating oil combustion that was in use in the late ‘20s in the furnace of the CPR Depot (Sun 11 Aug 1928). Ravenor apparently bought out Schwartz in 1940 and took over the New Age Book Shop.
CVA 260-776. In its final year of operation, the bookshop was in one of the commercial spaces within the Flack Block (the building on the NE corner of Cambie at Hastings shown behind the cenotaph at Victory Square. 1937.
In August 1940 police raided the shop, seizing some 1600+ books and documents. The Crown succeeded in making their case that about 100 of these books were “prejudicial to the safety of the state”, whatever that meant; nobody seemed to fully understand it — including the judge (Province 24 Sep 1940). The quote was from the Defence of Canada regulations attached to the War Measures Act. Ravenor was found guilty and sentenced to 14 months in the clink. The conviction was upheld on appeal, although the sentence was reduced to 8 months (Sun 11 Jan 1941).2
Of the seized books, 1000 were ordered to be destroyed. 630 other books were ultimately returned to Ravenor (Province 23 Apr 1942). He died in 1951.
The Ravenor case was part of much larger national and international events.
The CPC’s [Communist Party of Canada’s] opposition to World War II led to it being banned under the Defence of CanadaRegulations of the War Measures Act in 1940 shortly after Canada entered into the war. In many cases communist leaders were interned in camps, long before fascists….With Germany’s 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union and the collapse of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, the party argued that the nature of the war had changed to a genuine anti-fascist struggle. The CPC reversed its opposition to the war and argued the danger to the working class on the international level superseded its interests nationally.3
Wikipedia – Communist Party of Canada (World War II)
***
Notes
1 Although there was a lending library component to the book shop, it was not mentioned in the very limited advertising they did. (Note: My friend, Neil Whaley, has pointed out that in 1938 issues of People’sAdvocate, New Age Bookshop placed ads noting that they had a lending library of progressive titles and a complete line of stationery.)
2 At about the same time as the Ravenor trial was taking place, Ravenor and three other men were charged with being Communists. Sidney Zlotnik was charged with “being an officer or member of an illegal organization.” Harry Asson, Julius Fuerst and Wilfred Ravenor were accused of advocating the principles of the Communist party. All of the men received sentences of about one year. (I am a friend of Sidney’s son and have learned that after finishing his sentence for being a member of the Communist Party of Canada, he enlisted in WW2. I don’t know how willingly I would have served the country that had suspended my rights! Plainly, Sidney didn’t hold a grudge.)
This post was inspired by a series of CVA records that share the tag, “Incarcerated Persons”. All of these records are part of the Vancouver Police Department fonds and each consists of a mug shot and the date on which it was taken. Most were identified with a name and sometimes also an alias; a few were not. The incarcerated included women, men, caucasians, Asians, blacks, and indigenous people.
What appears below is a small sample of the incarcerated persons shown in CVA’s records along with a summation of the charge(s) brought against these people.
CVA 480-401 – H. J. Dennis
H. J. Dennis and Henry Carterwere sentenced to two months for “borrowing” a lawn mower and a pair of shears from Mrs. Percy Smith and then selling them to a Mr. Hatch for $1 so that they could purchase booze from John Beattie of the Empire saloon (Province 23 Aug 1898).
CVA 490-413 – Joseph Perry
Joseph Perry, a “coloured” man, was sentenced to six years for attempted rape (Province 18 Nov 1898).
CVA 480-437 – Rita King
Rita King was sentenced to five years for unlawfully wounding Tessie McDonald in a fight over the affections of Bert Washington. King and McDonald were both residents of Mrs. Mckenzie’s “disorderly house” at 37 Dupont (East Pender, today). Washington was “as lusty a young coloured man as ever graced a chain gang and for a number of years he has been shamelessly living on the avails of prostitution, which he extorted from his mistress, [Rita] King.” In early July 1899, Tessie McDonald began practicing prostitution at Mrs. Mckenzie’s house and caught Washington’s eye. “[King] implored Washington to cease paying attention to the other girl but his only replies were taunts and brutal jests at her passe appearance.” This continued until Washington and McDonald went to the Opera Resort saloon (which was at 500 Carrall Street, roughly where the Jack Chow Insurance building is today) for drinks. King, secreting a revolver in her clothes, followed the two to the saloon and shot and wounded McDonald. Washington was not hit (Province 21 Jul 1899).
CVA 480-450 – Charles A. Schroeder
Charles A. Schroeder, a hypnotist from Victoria, was charged with robbing his assistant of $35 while the latter was in a “hypnotic sleep” (Province 9 May 1899). The judge gave Schroeder a suspended sentence in this case. However, when Schroeder was charged shortly afterwards with stealing a cheque valued at more than $87, he was sentenced to a year (Province 26 Jun 1899).
CVA 480-447 – Rose Gaylord
Rose Gaylord was sentenced to 18 months for the theft of $50 from a Lulu Island farmer staying in a Vancouver hotel (Province 10 Apr 1900).
CVA 480-445 – Richard Fleming
Richard Fleming was sentenced to 18 months. He was employed at the Oriental Hotel and was found guilty of stealing “a considerable sum of money” and a gold watch and chain. James Thompson, against whom the theft was committed, had left the cash and watch in the hotel’s safe. The goods were nicked from the safe by Fleming, who claimed in court that the cash was spent on liquor (Province 12 May 1900).
CVA 480-451 – Walter Bradley
Walter Bradley was sentenced to three months for theft. Bradley, who claimed to be a dentist from Victoria, pled guilty to stealing a watch from William Gray who was staying at the Revere House (World, 21 Sep 1901). Apparently, Bradley bore a striking resemblance to Victor Spencer, a resident of Victoria, who was a son of dry goods retailer, David Spencer. He had a scheme going whereby he traded on his resemblance to Spencer with folks who had once lived in Victoria and had some acquaintance with the Spencer family. He would spin a hard luck story to these people (“a dozen or so”) to persuade them to advance him a “loan” (World, 18 Oct 1901). By the time this was reported in the press, Bradley was serving his sentence for theft from Mr. Gray. I wasn’t able to find any reports of Bradley receiving a further sentence for the Spencer scam.
CVA 480-461 – Joseph Flynn
Joseph Flynn, aka “Liverpool Shorty”, was charged with stealing a shawl from an “Indian woman” (Province 23 Sept 1901). In 1903, Flynn and a Mr. Grower were charged with stealing $20 from James Ingram (Province 8 Aug 1903). In 1911, Flynn was sentenced to 4 months for snatching a purse containing 45 cents and a few trolley tickets from a lady on the street. (News Advertiser 2 Aug 1911).
CVA 480-474 – Mitchell Doyle
Mitchell Doyle, “a boy of tender years but hard experience”, was sentenced to three months for stealing three bicycles (News Advertiser 28 Aug 1903).
CVA 480-471 – J. W. Darche
J. W. Darche, who earlier lived in Sherbrooke, Quebec, pled guilty to theft from the Palace Clothing Store, where he worked as a clerk. He admitted stealing $50 worth of clothing from the establishment. Sentence was reserved for two days while the police telegraphed his former residence in Quebec to determine if he’d ever had similar trouble there. I don’t know what the police learned from Sherbrooke (Province 2 Sep 1903).
CVA 480-462 – George Williams
George Williams was charged with stealing two pairs of shoes from Hugh Harvey, a shoemaker whose shop was located at 155 West Cordova street. He left his old shoes on the floor of the shop, and was wearing one pair of the two that he took from Harvey’s store at the time of his arrest. He claimed to know nothing of the theft, although Harvey positively identified the shoes. Williams claimed to be a shoemaker from Victoria. (Province 17 Aug 1903).
CVA 480-542 – Emil Jensen
Emil Jensen was sentenced to “three months hard labor” for stealing 500 cigars from H. Wilson on Cordova street. Detectives found Jensen in a shack on Beach avenue near the Granville street bridge (Sun 9 Nov 1912).
CVA 48\0-589b – Susy Denny
SusyDenny, a “coloured” woman, was charged with theft of $12 from Thomas Carlyle (a white guy, presumably) while he was walking down an alley “between Prior and Union streets east of Main” (that sounds a lot like Hogan’s Alley). Police officers “discovered their quarry” inside a room on Main Street. (World, 6 Dec 1912). In 1913, Susy was sentenced to 6 months in prison for the theft of $100 from a William Chilles. The judge in this case, Mr. McInnes, felt moved to comment on this case while passing sentence: “[I]f it were within my power to pass a sentence upon the male wretches who make this sort of thing possible, I would pass a greater sentence upon them than I am now imposing upon you” (News Advertiser 9 Feb 1913). What exactly McInnes meant by this is unclear to me.
CVA 480-491 – John Lyons
John Lyons was given a suspended sentence for vagrancy (homelessness), provided he found work in Vancouver or else left the city by the next day (Province 14 Oct 1912).
CVA 480-545 – Thomas Morrison
Thomas Morrison, a boiler maker, was sentenced to 4 months for leaving his wife and five small children to fend for themselves from May until November. The judge said, in passing sentence: “I wish there was some law that would let me send you downstairs and order the biggest sergeant on the force to punch you good and hard. I’ll give you a good chance too sober up and you can turn over a new leaf when you come out” (Province 13 Nov 1912).
CVA 480-111 The city hall and police station on Powell Street. (I would have shown a photo of a city chain gang if there were one available; but, alas, no). The officer at far left seated in the front row is Officer Grady, a chain gang guard at the time this was taken. An earlier chain gang guard (at the time this was taken, the caretaker) was John Clough, the man seated at far right who is missing part of his right arm. 1903. (I guess in that year, it was obligatory for all police officers to sport facial hair!)
To my surprise, and perhaps to yours, chain gangs were a reality in the City of Vancouver in its early years (roughly from city incorporation in 1886 until 1910). Evidently, in no province except B.C. was prison labour used (World, 5 June 1889).
Of whom did the chain gang consist? According to a contemporary of the gang, about 85% of those who were members appeared to be Caucasian (Province, 14 March 1901). The gang was composed entirely of men. And they all were convicted of minor offences — from vagrancy, to “supplying liquor to Indians”, to robbery — nothing more serious than a 6-month sentence. Quite often, it seems, those so convicted were given an option. For example, one fellow was given the option of paying $8 or he could opt for 16 days on the chain gang (World, 10 Sept 1890). Another person, an indigenous fellow named Alec, was found guilty of supplying liquor to other “Indians” and he could pay $25 plus court costs or else spend 2 months on the chain gang (News Advertiser, 6 Nov 1891). There seems to have been a lack of consistency in sentencing, however: a Chinese gent by the name of Ah Why, for stealing a can of coal oil, was given a sentence of 6 months on the chain gang (no mention was made of a fine option in his case) (Province, 22 April 1899). It is shocking from our vantage today, but a large proportion of the men sentenced to serve on the chain gang were convicted of vagrancy (homelessness, essentially). To borrow the parlance of the day, they were “vags”.
The gang was housed in the city jail when they weren’t working. Men of the city chain gang were not sent to the provincial jail in New Westminster as that was considered too costly. If they were sent to New Westminster, their board would have been about 50 cents per day; whereas if they remained in Vancouver, they would cost nearer to 17 or 18 cents a day (Province, 8 Jan 1901).
Judging from press accounts, the gangs did not go out to work if it was raining (News Advertiser 3 June 1899). But if it wasn’t raining, they would be transported to the job site for the day in a horse-drawn wagon. According to Major J. S. Matthews, Vancouver’s first archivist:
Their “chains” consisted of two ankle cuffs, two links about 18 inches long and a ring, and in addition a stout leather waist belt to which the ring was affixed. The links connected the ring to the ankle cuffs. When walking, the links were suspended from the waist belt and ring and the links lay inside each leg, perpendicularly, so that it could scarcely be seen as the trousers hid it. When at rest, seated or on a log or root of a stump, the waist belt was unfastened and the links thrown on the ground, so that no weight of iron whatever was felt by the prisoner. There were no chains, and there was no noise of clanking as there was nothing to clank.
Early Vancouver, J. S. Matthews, Vol. 7, p. 97
They would also have a pair of city-issued overalls that they would wear over top of whatever clothing they were arrested in (Province, 8 Jan 1901). But, according to Matthews, the guards would ensure that by the time the prisoners were released from the chain gang, they were outfitted in seasonally-appropriate clothing (Matthews, Vol. 7, p. 97).
Once somebody had been sentenced to serve on the city chain gang, he fell under the jurisdiction of the Vancouver Board of Works — a body which today has no equivalent. It was a standing committee of City Council, composed of city aldermen who were charged with making decisions regarding infrastructure improvements in the city. For the chain gang this included such tasks as: levelling recreation grounds such as those on Cambie Street and those on Powell Street; “opening” lanes (back alleys) — this probably included refuse removal and rough grading of these alleys; cutting grass of the Alexandra Orphanage; whitewashing the jail; removing rocks from English Bay; cutting grass and piling wood in the basement of the City Hospital. One of the early chain gang projects was to clean up Granville Street south of the Hotel Vancouver in preparation for the Fall horse racing event to be held there (World, 26 Oct 1888).
The value of work done by city chain gangs totalled somewhere around $4,100 per annum (News Advertiser, 19 Jan 1898; Province, 5 Jan 1901). It isn’t clear what formula was used for arriving at such a sum.
Police personnel responsible for guarding the chain gang were, in turn, officers Haywood, Clough, Grady, Leatherdale, and Burr. The guards were apparently armed while guarding the gang, but as far as I can tell, they never discharged their weapons while on duty.
The chain gang was abolished in 1910 (News Advertiser, 4 June 1910).1 Those who would previously have been put on the city chain gang were from then on sent to the provincial jail.
About a decade before the end of the city chain gang, a Province editorial noted that there were increasing calls for putting an end to the practice. However, those calls were apparently not for the benefit of the prisoners, but rather “for the honest men who might be glad of such work as is now performed by the chain gang” (Province, 8 Jan 1901). As for those who would have otherwise been consigned to the chain gang, according to the Province, they should be employed “breaking rock” or some other occupation unlikely to be sought after by “honest men”!
Notes
1 Major Matthews, inaccurately, has the year that the city chain gang was abolished as 1907.
This is the first post in which I will present a number of Infrequently Asked Questions and answers about the early First Baptist Church.
CVA Ch N66 – First Baptist Church (and the manse next door) at Hamilton and Dunsmuir. 190-.
When did FBC become FIRST Baptist Church?
It has been called “First Baptist Church” from the very beginning. It so identified itself in its 1887 incorporation document. However, before the congregation moved into its second building at Hamilton and Dunsmuir in 1889, the congregation identified itself in press ads simply as the “Baptist” church and after they moved into the chapel building at Westminster Avenue (Main Street) at Dupont (East Pender) as “Baptist Church, Westminster Avenue”.
Was First Baptist ever on a piece of land known as “Zion Hill”?
Yes, when the church was housed in the building at Hamilton and Dunsmuir (World, 28 July 1923). There were several early churches on this “hill” in the early years of Vancouver, in addition to the Baptists: Homer Street Methodist Church (where the Labour Hall is located today at NW corner of Homer and Dunsmuir; Holy Rosary Catholic Church at Richards and Dunsmuir; St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church at NE corner of Richards and Georgia Streets; and kitty corner to St. Andrew’s, the Congregational Church. Today, the only church still on Zion Hill is Holy Rosary. All of the others have moved or folded. This rising land was only referred to as Zion Hill by pioneer residents in a joking fashion (it could scarcely be called a “hill” even in Vancouver’s earliest days). It was never as institutionalized as “Church Hill” in Victoria, which was home to the Anglican Cathedral of that city.
Who was the architect of the Hamilton and Dunsmuir building?
It was widely reported in the local press that Thomas Hooper was the architect. But he was merely the “supervising architect”. William R. King (of New Westminster) was the actual architect of the building (World, 21 September 1889).
Was the initial Baptist building (at Westminster Avenue) immediately substantially repurposed once the congregation moved into their new quarters at Hamilton and Dunsmuir in September, 1889?
No. The Baptist Chapel was sold in July 1889 for $1,750.But the building continued to stand in its Chapel form for a couple of years after the Baptists moved out. There is a press record of it serving as the home of the tiny Zion Presbyterian Church as late as September1890. (World, 13 September 1890). According to pioneer resident, Joe Cameron, the chapel was ultimately put on stilts and a hardware store was built beneath it (Matthews, Early Vancouver, Vol. 4, p. 86).
The third (and current) FBC building at Burrard and Nelson has a Gothic Revival style. What was the design of its predecessor at Hamilton and Dunsmuir?
Was the Baptist church at Hamilton and Dunsmuir the first church building to be opened among the Protestant churches on Zion Hill?
No. The first Protestant church opened on Zion Hill was Homer Street Methodist, dedicated in May 1889; the Baptist building opened in September 1889; the Congregational Church in December 1889; and St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in May 1890.
Is it true that the Vancouver Fire Department used the not-quite-completed FBC at Hamilton and Dunsmuir to practice shooting water?
Yes. Fire Engine No. 2 shot a fine spray over the 110-foot tall spire in May 1889 (World, 10 May 1889). There are no photos of this, as far as I know.
What was the capacity of the Baptist Church at Westminster Avenue?
According to press ads at the time, the Chapel could seat 200. But, to me, this is stretching it a bit. I’d bet that the Chapel could have comfortably sat no more than about 150.
Were there baptismal tanks in both the church at Westminster Avenue and the one at Hamilton and Dunsmuir?
No. There was a tank in the Hamilton and Dunsmuir church. But in the Chapel, there was no tank. When the congregation was at Westminster Avenue, they relied on False Creek for baptisms.
Was “Home Cheer” a Vancouver Baptist magazine?
No. It was a local monthly publication of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union under the editorship of Sarah Bowes. It seems to me to have been an odd choice of title, as it smacks of “home brew”!
Was there more or less evidence of inter-denominationalism among Protestant churches in the early years of Vancouver compared with today?
More. It wasn’t uncommon for the Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Methodists and Baptists to hold “union” services together — especially at Thanksgiving. And there was an active Ministerial Association in place at the time. Today, there is no inter-denominational ministerial association, to the best of my knowledge (certainly not one that FBC is a member of).
How many Sundays did First Baptist minister, Rev. J. B. Kennedy, have off during his three years pastoring the church from 1887-1890?
One, and that one was for attending a convention in Tacoma! (World, 3 Jan. 1890)
William Henry Wood, Jr. was born in England in 1872 and immigrated from Chesterfield to Vancouver in about 1888 with his parents W. H. Wood, Sr. and Jane Oliver. He was one of a family of two boys and five girls. He worked briefly for Rand Bros Real Estate and later became the accountant for the Vancouver News-Advertister newspaper. In June, 1896, he married Esther Giffen. She was born in Ontario and later moved with her family to Brandon, Manitoba; Esther moved to Vancouver in the 1890s, where she got work as “one of the most popular lady operators” with the New Westminster and Burrard Inlet Telephone Co (an ancestor of BC Tel), which was located in the Empire Building at that time. She gave up that position upon marrying Wood (Daily News Advertister, June 26, 1896). Together, they had a family of two boys and four girls (one of whom died of dysentery) (News-Advertiser, 29 Aug 1906).
Wood was successful in his very first bid for civic electoral office in 1899, becoming at that time the youngest alderman to be elected to Vancouver City Council; he was 27. Civic elections functioned on the ward system at the time, with elections held annually in January. The two candidates who polled the greatest number of votes in each ward were deemed elected.
In 1899, the two who polled the most votes in Ward V (Mount Pleasant) were A. Bruce (188) and Wood (173) from a total of 761. In 1900, Wood (300) and T. S. Baxter (295) polled the most votes from a total of 1153. In 1901, R. Fraser (298) and Wood (255) of a total of 781 were elected to represent Mount Pleasant. In 1902, Peter Wylie (391) and Wood (213) were elected from a total of 1139 votes. (Note: It was announced in November 1901 that G. Clayton Leonard of the Oyster Bay restaurant and later of Leonard’s Coffee, would run in Ward V in 1902, but nothing ever came of that; perhaps he realized that his real talent was not sitting around in meetings, but instead making money in the restaurant and coffee shop biz!). In 1903, John Morton (284) was successful in being elected for Ward V along with Wood (282); (Note: The John Morton who was elected alderman in Mt Pleasant was not one of the Three Greenhorns; Greenhorn Morton lived on Denman Street in the West End). The total number of votes cast in Ward V in 1903 was 992. Wood’s final year running for Vancouver city council was 1904. Wood (285) was beaten in Ward V by J. Brydone-Jack (369) and John Morton (308). (Note: In 1906, Wood’s father, W. H. Wood, Sr gave civic electoral politics a try, but he was not successful; Wood Senior was a one-time CPR car builder and later was caretaker of Mount Pleasant School).
During his years as alderman, Wood was regularly referred to in the Province newspaper as “Willie” or even on one occasion as “Wee Wullie”. This was derisive and seems to have been a reference to Wood’s perceived youth and to the Wee Willie Winkie character created in a nursery rhyme by Scottish poet William Miller. A typical excerpt from the Province showing this way they refered to Wood appears below.
Hitherto Ald. Willie Wood has been regarded with a sort of good-humored tolerance. His views possessed no particular weight and he did not do much harm. He was young and his errors were supposed to be the errors of youth out of which he would grow. Instead, however, he is ever developing an intolerable bumptiousness though relief is found in the thought that perchance he reached his limit last night when he suggested that the city council was above accepting the suggestions of reputable citizens. Pain must then be felt when Alderman Willie Wood is seriously regarded — and contrition, too, when it is remembered that perhaps he has been sent us for our sins.
The Province, 5 March 1901
It seems to me that the Province’s intolerance of Wood’s (relative) youth was an indirect way of getting at him for being a Conservative. The Province’s editor at the time, W C Nichol, was a strong Liberal Party supporter (and later a Lieutenant Governor of BC). However, the newspaper’s treatment of Wood seems not to have harmed Wood electorally. He held Ward V as alderman for four consecutive years. Most Ward V aldermen did not retain their seats for more than a single term (one year).
After his defeat in the 1904 election, Wood found work as the accountant/paymaster with BC Electric Railway (earlier, Vancouver Power Company). He stayed with them until about 1914, when he enlisted in the 102nd Battalion in the Great War. He enlisted as a Private and was de-mobilized as a Sergeant. He came out of the war with his skin intact and found work in late 1921 with the Burnaby School Board as their “secretary” — essentially his role was as the School Board manager; we’d probably refer to the position today as “executive director”. His responsibilities included everything from the hiring of teachers to the putting out of tenders for building and repair of school buildings in Burnaby. Probably, today, his job is handled by several people.
He remained with the School Board in Burnaby until 1934 when he was mysteriously “retired” by them, although, as Wood made clear, he wasn’t retired for age-related reasons (Wood was 62 and his replacement was a couple of years older) nor for any job performance reason of which he was aware (The Province, 16 April 1934). I suspect the decision to let Wood go was a case of “jobs for the boys”. Wood was a Conservative and his replacement at the School Board office, Frank J. Russell, was a prominent Liberal, as was the recently elected provincial government.
After he was “retired” from the Burnaby School Board, Wood seems to have had no significant work. His death certificate refers to the Burnaby schools post as his last job. He continued his association with the BC Conservative Party, even running for the nomination to be a candidate in 1941; he was defeated on the first ballot (Sun, 20 Aug 1941).
Wood died in 1947. Ironically, it was The Province newspaper which honoured Wood with an article on the occasion of his death detailing his years of service as city alderman, his service in the 102nd Battalion, and his work with the Burnaby School Board. Esther Wood died in 1954.
Edward Kennedy (“Duke”) Ellington was a ‘jazz’ pianist, although he wasn’t keen on such categories; he preferred ‘the music of today’ rather than ‘jazz’. He wasn’t one of the great jazz pianists — he couldn’t compete with Errol Garner or Teddy Wilson or Oscar Peterson. But he was peerless when it came to composing (he is reputed to have composed 1000+ songs, many of which have become standards) and was probably an unmatched band leader. I’ll bet that the mere mention of some of his tunes will have you humming them: Mood Indigo, It Don’t Mean a Thing (if it ain’t got that swing), Take the ‘A’ Train, C Jam Blues, and Rockin’ in Rhythm are just a few examples. He maintained a big band long past the time when his fellow big band leaders had packed it in, at least partly so that he could have access to the band for the purpose of trying out new compositions.
My first encounter with the Duke’s music came after he had been dead for four years. My family was making a cross-continental trip from Western Canada to Indiana and my folks ensured that our Ford Bronco was well-stocked with recorded music. The time was 1979, I was in Grade 11, and the current audio playback technology was the 8-track tape. Among the tapes that my parents had purchased for the trip was a compilation of some of the hits of Duke Ellington and his Orchestra. I’d be lying if I claimed that this was among my favourite tapes; in fact, I think it might have been my least favourite. My jazz taste hadn’t matured much at that time, and Duke’s music wasn’t for kids. But over the next year I would be exposed to a great deal of big band and jazz music (not least through the Big Band (radio) Station) and, slowly, I came to appreciate the Ellington sound. (Parenthetically, allow me to point out what is probably obvious: I wasn’t an ordinary ‘70s kid when it came to my musical tastes; I was into the music produced by Goodman, the Dorseys, and Peterson).
CVA 134-086 – Duke Ellington leading Salvation Army Band to kick off Salvation Army capital building fundraiser. Note the two anti-Vietnam War posters in the background. 1970. Photo: Vancouver Express.
The Duke in Vancouver
Duke Ellington’s Orchestra first played Vancouver in movies (for which he produced several scores) and in radio broadcasts. He was first professionally active in the 1920s, and it was awhile —1940 — before he began to come to Vancouver with his orchestra to perform live.
His 1940 appearance came about as a result of negotiations between Gordon Hilker, manager of Hilker Attractions, and the local Musicians Union. The Union had opposed, for 11 years, the appearance of big-name American bands in Vancouver on the grounds that they represented unfair competition with local bands. Ellington’s band coming in 1940 was a breakthrough (Sun 9 April 1940).
In Ellington’s first two years appearing in Vancouver, he was advertised as “Harlem’s Aristocrat of Jazz”. This wasn’t at all accurate. Ellington grew up in Washington, D.C., not New York City (in which Harlem is located).
Ellington spent about 6 weeks in Vancouver in total over 33 years. Both figures I find remarkable:
1970 – The Cave Supper Club for a week; he’d also lead the Salvation Army band as part of their early ‘70s fundraising effort; and an appearance on a short-lived CBC Vancouver variety show.
There are three CVA photos of Ellington in town for his 1970 Vancouver appearance. He played the Cave for a week, he spent some time with the Salvation Army working to plug a fundraiser they were involved with. And he made an appearance in a TV variety show called “In the Round” (a short-lived CBC-TV Vancouver variety show).
Ellington was originally scheduled to play at the Orpheum Theatre in early April 1974 as a fundraiser for the Save-the-Orpheum fund. I’m not sure why he was approached for this, as he had never played a live concert at the Orpheum. But, in any case, he was forced to cancel this Vancouver appearance as he was hospitalized in New York with what was described as “flu”, but which was in fact lung cancer and pneumonia, and which ultimately killed him in May (Sun 30 March 1974; Sun 24 May 1974).
CVA 134-152 – Miss Sally Ann (who was, in fact, Mrs. Evelyn Caldwell) of the Salvation Army with former BC Attorney-General, Robert Bonner holding tambourine, and Duke Ellington. The gent at far left is unidentified. 1970.
CVA 134-153 – Duke Ellington as special guest for Vancouver Variety Show “In The Round” 1970 Photo – Franz Lindner. Note that there is a gent just behind Ellington who looks to me a lot like Fraser McPherson (see comment from Andy Nemeth below; I had originally thought it might be Dal Richards).
One of the earliest commercial tenants of Hartney Chambers (347 West Pender at Homer) was The B.C. Hair Goods Establishment, with Leo Mueller as proprietor. Mueller was born in 1878 in Braunshweig, Germany. He immigrated to Canada ca1906 and married Martha Persike in Vancouver in 1908; they had four children. Mueller’s profession was hairdresser.
Mueller, in an early Vancouver ad (1907), cited a number of cities in which he’d earlier worked at his profession, including Paris, Nice, Monte Carlo, London, Dublin “and other fashionable centres” as well as Winnipeg, where he managed The New York Hair Store for 18 months before making the move to Vancouver (World 31 Aug 1907). Mueller’s first Vancouver location was at the NW corner of Granville and Georgia (across Granville from the Hudson Bay) on the third floor of the Johnston and Howe block. By November 1907, the shop had moved to 436 Granville Street and by March 1910 to the then-recently finished Hartney Chambers.
By 1909, the B.C. Hair Goods Establishment was referring to itself more simply and memorably as the headquarters of “The Toupee King”. Mueller didn’t deal exclusively in toupees, however. He also provided wigs, pompadours and pin-tails and specialized in producing marcel waves for ladies.
In 1910, Mueller moved his business from Hartney Chambers to the Masonic Rooms at the corner of Georgia at Seymour Streets. B.C. Hair remained there for about 3 years. Then, ca 1913, for reasons that are unclear, he decided to shut the Vancouver business and moved with his family to the Okanagan district. This choice proved to be a profoundly unlucky one for the Muellers. In the summer of 1914, their two-year-old boy, Victor, succumbed to accidental poisoning while the family was in Penticton. He died as a result of
taking a number of pills containing a compound of strychnine and arsenic, which his mother had hidden away in the tent where the Muellers are living on Lakeshore Drive. The child climbed upon the dresser and secured the pills from behind one of the joists of the frame of the tent, where it had been placed for safe keeping.
Province 28 July 1914
War was declared in 1914, when the Mueller family were residents of Rossland and they were arrested as “interns” in the Vernon camp.
Leo got into a brawl in the summer of 1919 with another internee, named Carl Wagner, and in the brief tussle, one of Mueller’s vertebrae was broken; he died three days later. Before dying, however, Mueller made a magnanimous statement clearing Wagner of responsibility for Mueller’s death (Province 14 July 1919). At the coroner’s inquest following Mueller’s death, witness testimony seemed to verify Mueller’s claim. Apparently Mueller had run head-first into Wagner’s stomach and broke a vertrebra when he made contact, causing paralysis and ultimately his death (Province 13 July 1919).
Notwithstanding Mueller’s pre-death statement, Wagner was tried on a charge of manslaughter but was found not guilty in November 1919.
Mueller’s remains were initially buried in Vernon’s Mount Pleasant Cemetery, however sometime later he was moved to a cemetery in Kitchener, ON (Vernon Morning Star 22 May 2015).
Alfred (Fred) Noel Tibbott was born to David Tibbott (1869-1955) and Kezia Lewis (1868-1936) in 1893. He had two brothers and a sister: A. Victor (1894-?), Leonard (1900-1979) and Thelma (later Hargreaves) (1905-1994). Their parents immigrated to Canada from Wales. The family seems to have been religious (members at Mount Pleasant Baptist Church) and musical.
Not too much is publicly known about Tibbott’s life prior to the 1920s. But it is a fact that he enlisted in the Great War, although there are few details about that available (Canadian Great War personnel records seem to be redacted for Sergeant Tibbott, even all these years later). Secondary sources, however, report that Tibbott suffered from “shell shock” while he was overseas and that the condition persisted when he was back in Vancouver. He was subject to gassing, up-close bayonet fighting, and was wounded in a hand and had several shrapnel wounds in various parts of his body. In short, as the Province reporter put it, his war was one of “hard campaigning” (Province 7 Sept 1917). His mental illness exhibited, in part at least, as fainting spells. He apparently spent some time at Shaughnessy Military Hospital in Vancouver getting what limited treatment was then available for that disability.
Upon returning to Vancouver after his war service, Tibbott worked at a day job as a representative with Ellwood Ward Co., a printer. By 1922, he was working in his own capacity as a printer. And by 1923, he and George Rex (by that time, Tibbott’s second music compositional partner) had set up their own music publishing company, Le Roy Publishing, with offices in Vancouver (in the Empire Block) and San Francisco (where George Rex was the representative). Tibbott’s first compositional partner was A. Paul Michelin (1895-1955), a noted Vancouver organist for many years. In short, by 1923, Tibbott’s night job became his day job. From the time he had left war service, he was cranking out popular music in both unpublished and published form.
Tibbott’s compositions included the following unpublished ones:
When I Get Back to My Hometown Tonight. n.d. Tibbott & A. Victor Tibbott (Sun 6 Nov 1919)
Back in Civies. n.d. Tibbott & A. Victor Tibbott (Sun 6 Nov 1919)
I Have a Lovely Garden. n.d. Tibbott. (Daily World 12 Nov 1919)
Aeroplane Songs. n.d. Tibbott (Province 05 Jan 1921)
. . . and the following published compositions:
I Just Want You. 1921. Tibbott & Paul Michelin. Arranged by Calvin Winter.
Georgia (That’s Where I’m Longing To Be). 1921. Tibbott & Paul Michelin.
The Land of Yesterday. 1922. Tibbott & George Rex.
Sleepy Town. 1922. Tibbott & George Rex.
Cat’s Whiskers. 1923. Tibbott & George Rex. (This version of the tune was recorded for RCA-Victor in 1954 by Lou Monte; it isn’t the entire song, however, it is just the chorus. The verses of the Tibbott & Rex tune appear below.) Note: Coincidentally, Ed Gladstone and Felix Austead published a completely different tune/words than the one by Tibbott and Rex, also in 1923!
That’s Why I’m Longing for You. 1923. Tibbott & George Rex.
Vancouver. 1923. Tibbott & George Rex.
The last of the published songs, Vancouver, was pitched to the Vancouver Publicity Bureau as a possible booster for the city. Tibbott and Rex offered it to the city for $5000. The City demurred (Sun 18 Dec 1923).
On March 23rd, 1924, an unidentified body was found in the “woods” two blocks south of West 25th Avenue between Heather and Willow Streets. The body had been there, it was estimated, a week or more. And in the pocket of the person was an envelope addressed to David Tibbot — Fred’s father — and his Hoy Street address. It didn’t take the police long to establish the identity of the body: It was Fred Tibbott’s (Sun 24 March 1924).
Tibbott’s friends were at pains not to describe his death as a suicide. George Rex attributed his passing to one of his fainting spells due to shell shock (Sun 25 March 1924). There was an inquest, and the jury found that he came to his death “while of unsound mind caused by injuries received while on military service overseas” (Sun 25 March 1924). In other words, he died by his own hand but indirectly due to mental injury sustained in the War.
VPL 21921 – Deer at Hastings Park Zoo – 1925. Dominion Photo.
The Hastings Park Zoo endured at the park for about 30 years, however it is all but ignored in most histories of Vancouver parks and the Exhibition which has called Hastings Park home, the Pacific National Exhibition (PNE).
When the Zoo got its start in 1911, there was ambition on the part of the Exhibition Association to have one of “big proportions”. However, when the association was asked what buildings it was working on for the Exhibition, none of those mentioned had anything to do with a zoo. This would be typical of the association in future years, too. They would happily accept donations of various critters (especially “members of the feathery tribe”), but when it came to capital investment for the zoo, that was another story (Daily News Advertiser, 17 Jan 1911).
CVA 180 – 3547. Plan of the Vancouver Exhibition Grounds, 1915. As shown in the Index, the Zoo was located at 11-K, in the ravine.
In 1913, a shipment arrived at the Hastings Park Zoo of Chinese pheasants (probably Golden Pheasants) and Mandarin Ducks aboard the steamship Monteagle (Sun 7 Jan 1913). A couple of years later, a “deodorized skunk” was donated by boat builders, Pascoe & Co., who in turn received it from a northern BC lumber camp. In addition, P. Burns & Co. donated a seal (Province 2 Oct 1915).
The Zoo seemed to reach its zenith in terms of breadth of collection by the early 1920s: a pair of porcupines, deer, several guinea fowl, canaries, finches, bears, coyotes, swans, South American birds, Swedish ducks, Muscovy ducks, among others. In addition, the federal Department of Fisheries had established a well-stocked aquarium at Hastings Park that was considered to be part of the Zoo. The manager of the Exhibition Association in 1920, H. S. Rolston, made so bold as to forecast that within a “short time” the Zoo’s collection would be “second to none” in BC (Province 7 Apr 1920).
Where in Hastings Park was the Zoo? According to newspaper accounts, it was located in the “ravine” — probably a former Vancouver urban creek bed. The plan (at left) confirms that location. I imagine that the birds and various other harmless animals were allowed to roam pretty freely. Bears and coyotes, however, were likely caged someplace in the ravine.
VPL 21923 – Cassowary. Part of the “Feathery Tribe” at the Hastings Park Zoo. 1925. Dominion Photo.
In 1922, thieves made off with a part of the collection. The robbers’ sense of value could have been improved, however. Their “haul” consisted of five pigeons and a duck (Sun 6 Mar 1922). Perhaps they were hungry!
It isn’t clear to me exactly when the Hastings Park Zoo packed it in, but it seems likely that it was sometime in the early years of WW2. That was about the time that the aquarium in the Park shut down and I suspect that it was about the same time for the rest of the Zoo. Since most of the critters were birds, however, I expect that they were allowed to live out their lives in the ravine.
Sun 25 Aug 1975. An ad for the 1970s Animal Fair – with pretty awful poetry!
There was an “Animal Fair” at the PNE in the mid-1970s, however the fair seems to have been a petting zoo designed mainly for young kids to cuddle the bunnies and sheep.
It must be admitted that the Zoo at Hastings Park was never much of a Zoo, Mr. Ralston’s optimistic prognostication notwithstanding. However, the Stanley Park Zoo was never much of a zoo, either, and it hasn’t been ignored to the extent that the Hastings Park Zoo has been. In Vancouver’s Fair, for example, there is just the most passing reference to a zoo ever existing at the Park: “Further developments included…the beginnings of a small zoological collection” (Breen & Coates, 32). There are no illustrations of the Zoo in the accompanying volume of photographs.
I was paging through an early Vancouver directory the other day and stumbled across a building named the “Old Safe block”. (For the uninitiated, “block” is just another word for building). It was common for early Vancouver designers to name their buildings, but typically they used a surname, like Flack or Williams or Crews. Usually, the names would be after the owner. In that regard, the Old Safe block was unusual. Indeed, it seemed likely there was a story behind it!
First, a little background.
The building which would be known as Old Safe was built in 1887 (the year following Vancouver’s incorporation as a city and a year after the Great Fire) at the SE corner of Hastings at Seymour. It was the first brick building to be constructed on Hastings (World, 7 Aug 1919). It was built by the CPR (who owned the land on which it would sit) for the Bank of British Columbia and the Bank of Montreal, who would share the property.
VPL 9632. The Old Safe Block was the two-storey building in the foreground at SE corner of Hastings and Seymour (where the Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue stands today). 189- Edwards Bros.
Old safe, enter stage right.
The Bank of BC arranged to buy a large and hefty safe. According to one account, it tipped the scales at 3 tons (World 26 Nov 1906)! A vault was built by the Bank to surround the safe. A couple of years later, the Bank of B.C. merged with the Canadian Bank of Commerce and the amalgamated bank moved out of the Bank of BC’s former premises — without the safe (World Nov 26, 1906). This seems a reasonable decision, as the old safe was just that – old (it was thought to have been shipped to Vancouver in the 1860s) – and furthermore, unnecessary, since the new amalgamated premises at the SE corner of Hastings and Granville (the building in which Birk’s is today) already had a commodious and modern safe (Province 2 Jan 1919).
In 1903, Edward Lewis got ownership of the former Bank of BC building and he converted the building into one suitable for several businesses. But no sooner had Lewis acquired the property than the CPR/Bank of Commerce decided that the safe belonged to them. Please note that they reached this conclusion fully four years after they moved out of the building. Lewis disputed the claim of the CPR/Bank and a court case ensued.
Scene change to a courtroom somewhere in Vancouver.
Judge Henderson tried the case and found in favour of the CPR/Bank, awarding them $75 in damages and . . . (you guessed it), the old safe (World Nov 26, 1906). I cannot help wondering whether the CPR/Bank did not regret its court action, successful though it was. It seems a pyrrhic victory.
But the tale of the Old Safe block didn’t end with Judge Henderson’s verdict. Lewis appealed the decision and won. Lewis’ most persuasive argument seems to have been that the safe wouldn’t be recoverable without greatly damaging his property (World Nov 26 1906).
Denouement.
There was no appeal by the CPR/Bank, which suggests that they had reached the conclusion that “winning” would be meaningless. The safe seems to have been likewise useless to Lewis and later owners for anything more than as a cool storage space for the occasional dairy items. The Old Safe block would be what the building would be called after the court action ended. The old safe would remain within the structure until the former Bank of BC was demolished in ca1919 to make way for the Union Bank’s new building on the site (later, the Bank of Toronto; it still stands today as the Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue).
It seems that the moral of this true fable (a variant of The Dog in the Manger) is applicable to both parties to the court dispute: “Don’t grudge others — you bankers, railway barons and shop owners — what you aren’t able to enjoy yourselves.”
CVA 136-419 – Portrait of Rufus Gibbs. 1964. Allan Ray, photographer.
When the subject of Vancouver philanthropists comes up in conversation, the names H. R. MacMillan, Leon Koerner, Jimmy Pattison, Jack Diamond, and David Lam are likely to arise. But the name of Rufus Gibbs is less likely to come up. Who was he? How did he make his bucks? To whom did he distribute them? And why has his name faded into relative obscurity today?
Rufus Charles Gibbs was born to John and Eliza in 1882 in Ontario. His father seems to have made a living painting carriages in his home town of Peterborough. Rufus made a living for awhile as an electrical worker in Ontario. In his mid-20s, he made his way west-ish until he reached BC. He settled in Vancouver in 1908, where he established Gibbs Tool & Stamping Works, which specialized in manufacturing fishing lures. His business had three locations including one on Main Street, which was destroyed by fire, another at 356 West Dufferin Street, and a third at 290 West 3rd Avenue (starting in 1938) where it remained until after his death in 1968.
I found a bit of evidence that Gibbs had some experience as an inventor. He won a U.S. patent in 1927 for a match striker (Sun, 26 July 1927). As far as I can tell, however, this invention was never manufactured and Gibbs earned nothing from it. An avid cigar smoker, I suspect that the striker was as much for his own use as anything!
Gibbs had been a member of the executive of the Vancouver Boys Club Association for some time. In 1948, however, he notched up his involvement by purchasing a building for the Eastside Boys Club at 700 East Pender Street. The building at this site had formerly been a Jewish place of worship, an early location of the Schara Tzedeck Synagogue. Gibbs purchased the property for $15,000 and then paid for updates to turn it into a recreation centre for the Eastside Boys Club (a total outlay of some $40,000). It was to be known as the Rufe Gibbs Unit of the Association. This was the first of Gibbs’ major public donations.
In 1954, he helped the Ornamental Swim Club of Peterborough to attend and compete in the Synchronized Swimming event in the British Empire Games in Vancouver with a donation of over $5,000.
In 1963, Gibbs made a donation of $50,000 to Trent University in Peterborough. The plan was for five $500 scholarships to be awarded annually. These scholarships are still being awarded to this day “to students in all years on the basis of academic standing, all-round achievement and character.”
In February of 1964, the sod was turned on a development of the Canadian Arthritis and Rheumatism Society (later, Canadian Arthritis Society) to be known as the “Rufus Gibbs Lodge”. The Lodge (at 3255 Ash) would serve as a residence for out-of-towners from elsewhere in BC who were in Vancouver for treatment for arthritis (from which Gibbs suffered). He donated $60,000 of the $75,0000 cost of construction of the lodge.
In the mid-1960s, Gibbs donated $100,000 toward the development of the 1967 extension to the Vancouver Aquarium. Specifically, the donation went toward the creation of the Rufe Gibbs Hall of sport fishes.
In 1959, the Native Sons of BC awarded Gibbs the Good Citizen of the Year medal. In 1964, he received from the City of Vancouver the Freedom of the City, the principal tangible benefit of which is exclusion from having to pay for city parking. That was a benefit which Gibbs could not enjoy, however, as he didn’t drive.
CVA 1435-574. The Rufe Gibbs Hall at Vancouver Aquarium ca 1967.
In 1966, after 57 years in business, Gibbs closed the doors on his fishing lure manufacturing works. This came about following a labour dispute with his employees who demanded wage increases. He remained president and sole owner of the firm at the time of his passing.
Gibbs lived simply. He was a life-long bachelor; he rented a floor of the Patricia Hotel on East Hastings for some 44 years, moving into a rental apartment in Berwick House at 1375 Nicola in the West End for the last eight years of his life; he flew just once. And apart from an affection for cigars and the occasional glass of whiskey, he had no known vices.
Why has Rufus Gibbs become a relatively unknown personality, today? Well, the capital projects he funded (such as the Eastside Boys Club and the Rufus Gibbs Lodge) have not stood the test of time. The Boys Club at 700 East Pender was sold and redeveloped into condo units in 1987. And the Arthritis Society seems not to still retain the Rufus Gibbs Lodge. While the Rufe Gibbs Hall at the Aquarium seems still to be extant, the signage identifying the hall is very small and is in a dark space which makes it almost impossible to read unless one is looking for it. In addition, the amount of money which Gibbs donated to various causes — when compared with the amount splashed about by the likes of Pattison — was admittedly quite small. But he gave what he had to those causes that presented themselves to him in his day.
Interestingly, the Gibbs fishing lure company has endured. After several mergers, Gibbs Fishing is today a going concern, some 115 years after it was founded by Rufus Gibbs in Vancouver.
When he died in 1968, aged 86, Gibbs left an estate of about $466,000. A small portion of this was designated for individuals; $25,000 was for the Salvation Army; and $300,000 was to be given to impoverished Anglican churches in BC.
As he was often quoted as saying, “What are you going to do with it if you don’t give it away? I can’t take it with me, that’s certain” (Sun 8 Jan 1964). Whether he’s remembered by the average Vancouverite today or not, may I lead us in three cheers for the memory of what Rufus Gibbs did in his relatively small way . . . and may we follow his example!
I used to be convinced that there was a Cecil Hotel in virtually every urban centre in North America. And for all I know, that may have been true. But the Cecil had nothing on the Windsor Hotels. These were everywhere in BC — Trout Lake City, Fergusson, Rossland, Greenwood, Morissey, Revelstoke, Nanaimo and Van Anda. And they were in other provinces, too, notably Alberta (Red Deer, Lundbreck, Edmonton, Lethbridge, Calgary, Camrose, and Hughenden) and Ontario (Kingston, Sault Ste. Marie, Windsor (naturally), Ottawa, and North Bay). To say nothing of larger North American locales such as Montreal and New York City.
But this blog looks exclusively to Vancouver history. And there were no fewer than six Windsor Hotels here from almost the incorporation of the city until 1980.
Westminster Avenue
SGN 1118 – 792 Westminster Avenue (later Main Street) Windsor Hotel (at corner of Barnard Street, later Union Street). ca1888 Charles Bailey photo.
The first Windsor Hotel I could find in Vancouver was at the NE corner of Westminster and Barnard (today, Main and Union). G. A. Langley was an early proprietor. The hotel seems to have been built in ca 1888. However in late 1888, another Windsor was so named and it got to be confusing having two such hotels in the city and so by 1889, this hotel changed its name (unimaginatively) to the Victoria (News-Advertiser 13 Nov 1889). By 1902, and under new management, this establishment was calling itself, once again, the Windsor — no doubt at least in part because the Windsor at Pender and Seymour was no longer using the name (Province, 4 Jan 1902).
The rooming houses at this location have included: Westminster Rooms (1920s-1930s), Luck Man Rooms (1940s), and Three Star Rooms (1950s). There were several different lunch spots on the main floor: the American Cafe (1920s), Stella’s Cafe (1930s), Woodland Cafe (1940s), the Koh-I-Noor (1967-1969) and the Punjab Restaurant (1970-1993).
The building which stands at this corner today, although quite ancient (by Vancouver standards) doesn’t appear to be the same structure as the first Windsor was in. Adjacent to this rooming house for a number of years was the notable Vie’s Chicken and Steak House (1950s-1979).
West Pender and Seymour
The second Windsor Hotel (the one with which the first one was sometimes confused) was located at 605 West Pender. It had a dining room (which would seat 48), and 22 bedrooms. It was built by Dr. James Whetham. The first manager was Ed Ermatinger (1888) who had formerly managed the CPR hotel in North Bend (World, 31 Jan 1889). Management was taken over in September 1889 by H. A. Brocklesby and William H. Allen (later, just Brocklesby) who were formerly employed at the Hotel Vancouver (World, 14 Sept 1889). T. A. Shaw was a later manager (1891); he was followed by William Brown (1892).
By ca1894, the Windsor on Pender at Seymour folded and became the Delmonico Hotel, taking the name for the hotel which had been, for a number of years prior, the name of the dining room attached to it. In the 1912 period, it became the Terminal Rooming House; in the 1920s, it was known as the Mason Rooms; in the 1930s, Manor Rooms.
In about 1960, the former Windsor #2 was demolished, presumably to make way, ultimately, for the parking garage which seems to have been erected there in the late 1960s and which remains on that corner.
East Hastings and Gore
CVA 371-2119 -NE Corner of East Hastings Street at Gore Street ca 1910. Windsor House – latterly the B.C. Salvation Army HQ.
Windsor House was established at 301 East Hastings Street (at Gore) in 1903. It had 23 bedrooms. The first manager was Mrs. D. McCannell; by 1905, the manager was Ellen Ostrom.
This Windsor was purchased in September 1906 by the Salvation Army. It was enlarged and remodelled (shown above in its early Salvation Army form) to serve as their BC headquarters with an auditorium that would seat up to 600. The Sally Ann replaced the three-storey structure with a new and much larger concrete deco-style “citadel” in 1949. In the mid-1980s it became the Gold Buddha Sagely Monastery. In 2001, it was purchased by the Vancouver Health Board (for a cool $1.5 million); it was supposed to be converted into a health centre that would integrate Eastside health services. But nothing came of those plans and ever since, it has been used as a huge storage facility by Vancouver Coastal Health. In 2016, there was talk by the province of demolishing the structure for social housing, but nothing has come of that plan, either.
Granville (Across from Vancouver Opera House)
2015-028.22 – Robson and Granville looking toward the Windsor Hotel at 750 Granville, ca 1913.
The Hepburn block (built for Alderman Water Hepburn shortly before) and built across from the Vancouver Opera House on Granville Street just south of Georgia, was leased in 1908 to become the Windsor Hotel, initially with 50 bedrooms (Province 20 Feb 1908). Early managers were W. H. Allen and Charles D. McKenzie (1908); later Houde and C. Thibault (1909); J. B. Simpson (1910); T. J. Ogle and Dave Burton (1914); and J. B. Teevens (1914). Ogle and Burton added another 100 bedrooms to the initial offering (World 6 Jan 1912).
There was a Windsor Cafe attached to the hotel (“Why cook at home when you can get a dinner…served with all white service?”) (News Advertiser 3 May 1908). From ca1913 until it folded, the Cafe had as its manager, Henri Aubenau (Province 27 Aug 1913), formerly of Vancouver’s London Grill, Dutch Grill, French Cafe, and Olympic Cafe.
By November 1914, the Windsor Hotel on Granville called it quits and the space was leased to the Castle Hotel. The Castle remained at the site of the former Windsor until the early 1990s when it too folded. The Winners/Best Buy stores went in this space by the early 2000s (in a new building).
55 East Hastings
The Windsor at 52 East Hastings was extant from 1929-1934. Sam Plastino was manager 1929-30; Lou S. Barrack from 1931-34. This Windsor was probably the least reputable of all of the hostelries of the name. Barrack was arrested (along with five women and two Chinese men) for “keeping a disorderly house” (code for a house of prostitution) in a raid on the Windsor. Barrack pleaded guilty and faced a fine of $100 and two months at the Oakalla prison farm (Sun 23 March 1933). The other seven were fined $25. In 1935, Barrack was convicted of “living off the avails of prostitution” and spent 5 more years courtesy of His Majesty, this time at the New Westminster Penitentiary (Province 13 May1936). In January 1935, the city refused to renew the license of this Windsor and indicated that any further use of the establishment as a hostelry would result in prosecution (Province 24 Jan 1935).
By 1936, the hotel was back in business under the new name of the St. James (and, presumably, new ownership) (News-Herald 17 June 1936). The structure that once housed a Windsor seems still to be standing, although it’s in very bad shape. There was talk in 2021 of demolishing it, but nothing seems to have come of that proposal (Sun 10 Nov 2021).
Nicola at Harwood
CVA 1095-01357 – Windsor Lodge at Nicola and Harwood streets in 1974, looking down at the heels and towards the end of its life.
Before this was the Windsor Lodge it was a private residence. The address was 1279 Nicola. Early owners were Henry J. Thorne (tea wholesaler); Ernest J. Deacon (lawyer); and John G. Billings (building inspector).
The Windsor Lodge was established in 1938. Early managers included J. Barnes (1940); F. Cloak (1942); and A. K. Courtney (1945). By 1970 they were limiting renters those “over 30”; by March 1973, that had changed to those “over 35” and by July 1973, to “over 40”!
The Lodge lasted until ca1980. It was replaced by the low-rise (5-storey) Ocean Vista apartments ca1982. It still stands at the original address.
CVA 99-2867 Funeral Procession on Georgia Street for RW and Mildred Brock. August 1935. Stuart Thomson photo.
Well, his funeral procession is remarkable to me, at any rate.
The photo above has been a source of puzzlement to me since I first laid eyes on it some years ago. I knew in a general way who Brock was. He was the Dean of Applied Science at UBC and the namesake of a building on UBC campus in which I’d spent some time in the early 1990s (Brock Memorial Hall Annex), as it then served as office space for grad school teaching assistants in the political science department, of which I was then one. But I couldn’t conceive why a dean should rate a major funeral procession through downtown Vancouver, as I couldn’t think of any other UBC staff (deans or otherwise) who had merited such treatment.
So why was RW (as he was widely known) – rarely as Reginald – accorded such an honour? Some details are in order – about his life and the manner of his passing – before we’ll be in a position to speculate on why a major public funeral procession.
RW’s life (Briefly)
RW was born in January 1874 in Perth, Ontario to a Methodist pastor, Rev. Thomas Brock and his wife, Marian Jenkins. He earned his M.A. degree from the School of Mines at Queen’s University in 1895. RW did post-grad work at Heidelberg University, Germany and served for several years as an explorer in the Kootenay region of BC as a member of the permanent staff of the Geological Survey. From 1907-1913, he was Director of the Geological Survey of Canada. He was appointed a Royal Commissioner to investigate the cause of the tragic slide of part of Turtle Mountain into the town of Frank, Alberta in 1903. Brock left the Geological Survey to accept the Dean-ship of the Faculty of Applied Science at UBC in 1913.
Shortly after becoming Dean, he became actively involved in the Great War as a Captain initially and later with the rank of Major. He was, early on in the war, involved in the recruitment of men among the western universities of Canada (which were, at the time, UofA, UofS, UofM and UBC). Later, he was attached to General Allenby’s staff in Palestine, and in 1918 he was seconded to the War Office in London. Brock was de-mobilized in 1919.
RW seemed to enjoy public speaking as he spoke regularly to a variety of groups about his war experiences and about travels he took after the war to different locations. Among the topics of Dean Brock’s public speaking outings were: “With Allenby in Palestine”, “Vancouver’s Ancient History”, “Palestine and the Last Crusade”, “Bible Lands”, “Life in China”, “A City Built For Gentlemen by Gentlemen: A History of Malta”, “The History of Man Revealed in the Rocks”, and “The Future of Canada”. So more than just re-runs of old talks about rocks and bones!
RW married Mildred Gertrude (“Millie”) Britton in November 1900. Together they raised five boys (Willet, Byron, David, Thomas, and Phillip). In 1922, Millie was appointed District Commissioner for Vancouver of the Girl Guides. She was appointed commissioner for the Girl Guides for the Burrard Division (which included most of the Vancouver suburban areas) in 1926. That seems to have been a promotion.
In 1928, Brock was appointed second-in-command of the (Vancouver-based) Seaforth Highlanders; and by 1933, he took over command of the Highlanders as Lieutenant-Colonel. In January, 1935, RW was appointed Chairman of the Vancouver Harbour Commission.
The Deaths of RW & Millie
On July 30, 1935, RW and Millie Brock died from injuries sustained from a (Vancouver-built) Boeing flying boat accident upon take-off from Alta Lake (which is located about 50 miles north of Vancouver); the aircraft seems to have been bound for Vancouver from Pioneer Mine. The plane had stopped at Alta Lake to pick up Millie who was vacationing there. Death was instantaneous for the Dean and pilot of the plane, who were both in front seats and took the full force of the crash. Death came about 8 hours later for Millie after being sped to Squamish via train which was met by Victor Spencer’s yacht, Deerleap, which took her and Pioneer Mine executive, David Sloan, as well as the dead to Horseshoe Bay where they were transferred to an Exclusive ambulance to VGH. Millie died upon reaching Horseshoe Bay. She was 56; RW was 61.
CVA 99-7263. RW’s casket being loaded on the gun carriage following the service at St. John’s United Church for the military funeral procession. August 1935. Stuart Thomson photo.
The service for the Brocks was held at St. John’s United Church at Comox and Broughton in the West End. Once the service was concluded, RW’s casket was placed on a gun carriage (and Millie’s in a hearse) for transport east on Georgia Street as far as the Georgia Viaduct after which the remains of both Brocks were transferred to a hearse which then proceeded to the family’s burial plot at Ocean View Park. The funeral procession was part of the “full military honours” which the Seaforth Highlanders laid on for the Dean. For the Georgia Street/gun carriage leg of the procession, RW’s casket was covered with a Union Jack and following the casket was a black led charger with empty saddle and reversed boots in the stirrups. The Province newspaper described the crowds at the funeral procession which it claimed numbered in the thousands to be “one of the greatest expressions of public sympathy in Vancouver’s history” (Province, 5.Aug 1935).
Conclusions
It is pretty plain from the above details that the funeral procession was sponsored by the Seaforth Highlanders rather than the City. However, it is one thing to have such a thing; it is quite another to attract thousands of people to the procession. I think at least three elements contributed to the people of Vancouver coming out in such numbers for the Brocks’ funeral.
First, I think that the willingness of the Dean to speak publicly, and presumably effectively, to a diverse array of audiences in the city served to make him more popular than your average UBC prof/administrator. Second, I suspect that the shocking nature of the way in which the Brocks died, and the fact that they were taken in the prime of their lives was a factor. Finally, the Brocks seem to have had personalities that attracted people to them. That factor, and the fact that they had met such a wide variety of folks over the course of their lives in the City contributed, I think, to the numbers at their funeral: students, UBC staff, girl guides and girl guide commissioners, miners, prospectors, harbour commission people, geologists, and mililtary personnel, to cite just a few.
VPL 20268. Showing St. Francis Hotel and Almer Hotel (the Padmore Block) adjacent to each other.
The narrow building adjacent to the St. Francis Hotel on the south side of the 600 block of Cordova (between Granville and Seymour) was built in 1912 and was known as the Padmore Block after its initial owner, F. W. Padmore. The building was 25′ wide by 122′ deep and was of “concrete, brick, and mill construction” (Province, 2 Mar 1912). In print accounts of the construction, various numbers of floors were anticipated. One account said it would have nine floors, another said six, and others claimed (accurately) eight. Padmore bought the land on which he would ultimately build his structure fully 10 years prior, in about 1902 — several years before the St. Francis Hotel was built (at the time, the adjacent structure was the (wood frame) Revere House Hotel; preceded by the White Swan Hotel). The Padmore was built at about the same time as the new CPR depot (today’s Waterfront Skytrain Station) was being constructed to replace the earlier chateau-style depot.
Saturday Sunset 28 June 1913.
The first occupant of the hotel space was the Bachelor’s Club (1913-1914). The Club took over the entire Padmore Block. It claimed to offer a “fine view over harbour; new building; new furniture; hot and cold water and phone to each room; smoking, reading and writing rooms” (Daily News Advertiser 28 May 1913). It had about 90 rooms, all with outside views. Annual club dues were $5. There were meals available in a dining room at modest cost and an orchestra played in the dining room in the evenings. The Club didn’t last long; it seems to have folded within a year of its establishment. It had the misfortune to be launched just prior to the start of the Great War, when most young bachelors were Europe-bound. Another similar club, the Jolly Bachelor’s Club was founded in Kerrisdale at 2118 West 41st Avenue by 1917. But unlike the short-lived Cordova Street Club, the Jolly Bachelor’s didn’t have a residential component.
Saturday Sunset 28 June 1913.
World. 18 August 1920
The next group to lease the Padmore Block was Vancouver’s Red Triangle Club (1919-1920). This was a YMCA hotel for returned soldiers of which there were several others in Canadian and international cities. Captain Robert C. Horn was in charge of the Vancouver Red Triangle Club. The Club was never intended to be a long-term prospect, and it wasn’t, lasting just one year in Vancouver.
The Padmore Block became the Almer Hotel under the management of Mrs. M. Greer shortly after the Red Triangle Club disbanded. The Almer continued on under that name until it was demolished in the 1980s, giving way to high-rise office space in the area once occupied by the St. Francis, Almer and Grandview Hotels.
Postcard header showing where the “red triangle” of the YMCA came from.
I’m a big fan of mezzanines. I like their architectural function in keeping a space open and “airy”. This post is intended to be a celebration of mezzanine floors in Vancouver by touching on some of my favourite examples, past and present, existing and demolished.
What do I Mean by a Mezzanine Floor?
I like the Wiktionary definition of a mezzanine: “An intermediate floor or storey in between the main floors of a building; specifically, one that is directly above the ground floor which does not extend over the whole floorspace of the building, and so resembles a large balcony overlooking the ground floor.” I would add that in order for a mezzanine to truly “count” in my definition, the space in the intermediate floor must not be separated from the ground floor space by a barrier – including glass.
I’m most interested in those mezzanines that exist or existed in Vancouver that were/are in retail spaces or eateries. I’m less interested (although I’ll spend some time on) those intermediate floors that are in office or residential spaces. I will ignore in this post those spaces that are sometimes referred to as “mezzanines” that exist in churches, hotels, theatres, and stadia. I’ve found that the “mezzanines” in those spaces don’t really fit the definition above and are really, in the case of churches, “galleries”, and in the other spaces, often glorified staircases.
Early Commercial Mezzanines
One of the first floors that came to mind when I was brainstorming mezzanines in Vancouver was the Marine Building. It used to have at least two mezzanines: the one that we probably most often think of today above the terra cotta features in the main lobby; and there used to be a second one in the Merchant’s Exchange section of the building.
Looking from the Marine Building mezzanine out onto the terra cotta. MDM Photo.
There was a mezzanine in the old Inns of Court building, apparently, but it was renovated out of existence early on (by 1906) to make room for more office space (World, 23 Feb 1906). The Inns building was, of course, demolished long ago.
There is one extant from about 1908 in the former B.C. Permanent Savings and Loan building (today an “event space” known simply as “The Permanent”) on Pender Street. The mezzanine is above the former vault and takes one near to the building’s quite remarkable dome.
Almost from the opening of the Standard Bank Building, the mezzanine floor had a hair-dressing outfit in it. This continued at least through the 1970s (although with different operators).
The former Bank of Commerce block at the SE corner of Granville and Hastings (today’s Birks) had and, to their credit, still has a mezzanine with wide, sweeping steps leading one up to it. I can imagine ladies and gents of the ‘20s who were dressed to “the nines” posing dramatically on those stairs!
Retail Mezzanines
One of the earliest references I could find to a mezzanine in a retail space was a “cosy tea room” in addition to a “rest and writing room” located on the mezzanine of Stark’s Glasgow House – a prominent early dry goods department store in Vancouver (World, 28 Sept 1909). Why would a person go to a department store and suddenly feel the overwhelming compulsion to write — and require a whole room for that function? Mysterious.
There was a mezzanine in Edward Chapman’s men’s wear in the old Bower Building at 545 Granville (there is currently a new Bower Block at the same location) which drew the following enthusiasm from the Province:
A mezzanine floor…goes around part of the walls like a gigantic and convenient shelf…. [and] on its walls are to be found a few of the choice pictures which it is Mr. Chapman’s hobby to collect and which are always worth looking at.
Province 01 Dec 1910
Presumably, the “gigantic shelf” is gone in the new Bower, but I cannot confirm, as the security guys there are not overly fond of historical busy-bodies who ask peculiar questions. There is more about Edward Chapman’s to come.
Stairs up to the mezzanine in the Birk’s Building (Georgia at Granville). Photo courtesy of Angus McIntyre.
The David Spencer department store had a mezzanine from 1908, when they built the building facing onto Cordova Street. In a sense, though, all of the floors in this new structure were mezzanines. All eight floors faced into a common light well with a portal at the rooftop to admit the sunshine. This structure pre-dated the ready availability of electrical light and so this helped solve that problem. What was on the mezzanine? Well, as was common among dry goods stores with mezzanines, shoes. Shoes for everyone: men, women, and kids. Also the optical department was there.
An early and longstanding retail mezzanine (spanning roughly 1927-1979) was at the Hudson’s Bay Company. Initially, there was just the one mezzanine on the west (Granville) side of the store. On that floor, were the bookstore, HBC’s circulating library, and the optical parlour, post office, parcel check desk and public telephones (by 1932, you could also find clock and watch repair facilities on the mezzanine). Indeed, just about anything you could think of that didn’t fitreadily into any other department, could be found on the mezzanine floor of the Bay. By 1952, there were two mezzanines mentioned in HBC ad copy: a west mezzanine and an east one. Both of these seem to have been remodelled out of existence by 1979.
CVA 586-1722 – Looking upwards toward the mezzanine floor at the Hudson Bay Company. Don Coltman ca 1943.
In 1929, Cut Rate Drugs on Hastings and Granville opened a ‘Truss Room” on their mezzanine floor! “In the seclusion and privacy of this department you will find courteous attendants ready to give you the very thing you want in Surgical Supports” (Sun 14 March 1929).
In 1930, Rae-Son Shoes for ladies began crowing about the mezzanine floor in their establishment at 644 Granville. Rae-Son wasn’t new to the shoe biz; they’d been in the business for about 30 years. But this shop with a mezzanine was new to them, and they intended to make the most of its presence. They engaged in a “merchandising experiment” (more accurately, a marketing experiment) in this first year of the Great Depression to provide on the mezzanine floor, shoes for ladies marked at no more than $7.50. It evidently was a success, as they enlarged the mezzanine only a few months later to twice its original size (Sun, May 30, 1930). Rae- Son arguably made the most effective use of mezzanines among Vancouver retailers over the course of their corporate life, making the word “mezzanine” almost synonymous with great shoes for ladies at reasonable prices. By the 1960s, Rae-Son, though continuing to exist in the shoe business, seemed to discontinue their “merchandising experiment” with the mezzanine.
About the same time as Rae-Son was having its initial success with its mezzanine, Bert Love was establishing a restaurant that featured a mezzanine “with several private dining rooms where business men may dine and discuss business affairs in privacy” (Sun 26 May 1930). Not much later, Mr. and Mrs. Winterbottom had opened the Devon Cafe at 675 Granville with a Mezzanine Lounge.
CVA 99-4438 – Devon Cafe interior at 675 Granville Street. Stuart Thomson, 1935.
By 1938, Woodward’s had obtained a building permit for an addition to their Vancouver store at Hastings and Abbott and it would include a mezzanine with washrooms for men and women and, later, a shoe department (of course) featuring Woodward’s brand Woodsonia shoes. The location of the mezzanine was a bit obscure, however. It rather confusingly described its shoe department as being on the “Mezzanine, Woodward’s, Main Floor” (Province 3 Jan 1949). Which was it? On the mezzanine or the main floor?! By 1949, the men’s tailored-to-measure department was also on the mezzanine in Woodward’s and by 1951, it was joined by the Mezzanine Dinette – a sort of 1950s-era cafe.
By the 1940s, Copp the Shoe Man was crowing about its mezzanine in ads for its shop at 339 W. Hastings.
In 1948, Tip Top Tailors moved into its space on Hastings near Hamilton along with a mezzanine-cum-catwalk for both male and female fashion shows. The space has been used for several retail purposes since Tip Top moved out in about 1955, and I strongly suspect that the mezzanine is long gone.
In the same year, Tracy’s Fashion Centre had opened at 524 Granville (where Moore’s the Suit People is today). Tracy’s would remain there – with it’s mezzanine – until the mid-1970s. I have a feeling that there is still a mezzanine there, now that it is Moore’s. Tracy’s and Jermaine’s at Granville & Smithe (although operating in a wider range of business than just shoes, seemed to adopt Rae-Son’s strategy with mezzanines for shoes). Starting in 1963, Jermaine’s had a “Mezzanine Coffee Perch” up there, as well (Sun 1 Oct 1963).
In 1959, an entrepreneur named Ross Brown opened a new restaurant opposite the Capital Theatre (at 823 Granville) with a mezzanine that featured lunch “for men only”. Brown referred to his mezzanine as a “lounge” or a “retreat” rather than as a floor and to the whole “men only” experience as being “outstandingly different” (Sun 14 Sept 1959; Sun 12 Oct 1960). Brown claimed to be “always ready to serve you”, presumably only if you were of the appropriate gender!
The Fraser Book Bin (later A-Aabaca Books) at 1247 Granville had a mezzanine floor, which I recall fondly.
In the early 1970s (and perhaps later, too), Edward Chapman’s Men’s Wear on 833 W. Pender Street had an atypical mezzanine. “The balcony [by which they seemed to mean the mezzanine]…is really an antique and art gallery” (Province 2 Aug 1972). Clothing was seemingly almost an afterthought at Edward Chapman’s – both at this shop and at their earlier Granville Street store! This Chapman’s shop was recently demolished as part of the Exchange development on West Pender.
The Mr. Big ‘n Tall Shop by the early 1970s was located at 578 Seymour Street. They had a mezzanine floor on which they put their Mr. Short Store, for shopping by those who were “5’8″ and under” (Sun 30 Mar 1974).
Post-Mezzanine Era
In the post-war period, retail mezzanines seemed to gradually fade out of vogue. They continued to exist, but few seemed to be products of new construction. Most mezzanines that were cropping up as new builds by the late ’60s and early ’70s were in commercial/office spaces and even in residential spaces – particularly as condominiums became more popular.
There was a mezzanine in the BC Hydro building on Burrard at Nelson by the 1950s. This floor housed the personnel department and perhaps other Hydro offices. It seems still to be extant, now that it is the residential “Electra”, though for what purpose I don’t know – possibly just decorative.
Granville Square (200 Granville) and the MacBlo (Georgia near Burrard) buildings both had mezzanines. These are both brutalist office buildings and I suspect that the mezzanines were installed by the architects as a way of mitigating the otherwise unremitting verticalness of the buildings.
There was a mezzanine in the former Baron Gallery at 293 Columbia Street. Artist Tom Carter had an exhibit at the Baron in 2011. But the space hasn’t been an art gallery for years, and recently seems to have become a private residence (condo) of which photographs are not currently available.
The Finest Example (With Functional Corrective)
VPL 3415. Main Branch Robson at Burrard mezzanine.
In my opinion, the mezzanine of the Main Branch of Vancouver Public Library (Robson and Burrard) is a great example of a mezzanine in Vancouver. I think it was one of the first mezzanines that I saw upon coming to Vancouver and I had many positive associations with it. I loved it!
The purchase of the building by Victoria’s Secret after the Main Branch moved down to the “coliseum” site was a real travesty. Although Victoria’s Secret evidently kept the old mezzanine (to their credit), they’ve tarted up the interior of the building to such an extent that one cannot appreciate the mezzanine for what it was.
A friend, who was on the staff of VPL at the time of the move from Robson/Burrard to the coliseum site, had this to say about mezzanines at VPL:
When the present library was being built, admin heard a lot of begging from staff NOT to have a mezzanine at the new site. The staff feared having a mezzanine because it makes it hard to direct people to the floors above.
This (dis)functional feature of mezzanines in a public space hadn’t occurred to me. Her words served as a corrective for my nearly blind affection for the old mezzanine. As with so many other things, context matters.
But I remain fond of that former VPL mezzanine – if only in memory!
This is the scene backstage at the Beacon Theatre. This photo has been given to CVA, but it hasn’t yet been processed by them. Courtesy of Tom Carter’s Collection. This photo was one of several in possession of Arthur Irving and this one was likely made in the early 1930s.
“Stage hand” is an inclusive term used to refer to people (mostly men) carrying out different tasks backstage in live theatre. The term can include stage mechanics, carpenters, property men (or boys), electricians, scenic artists, and many other jobs. Some of these jobs were preparatory (costume design and scenic artistry), while others happened while the play unfolded (scene movers and lighting). One thing that all of these people had in common, however, was that unlike the cast of plays, stage hands were typically invisible to the audience.
Beginning in 1904, with the establishment of the IATSE (International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees), Local 118, Vancouver stage hands were protected by a labour union. The IATSE included “stage managers” among those it covered. These managers were not considered “management” in the labour relations sense of the word.
Early Stage Hands
I’m showing below the very basic bios I have been able to assemble (principally from local newspapers; also from Royal B.C. Archives and city directories). It is probably safe to assume that if there is no press citation then the source is either the provincial archives or a city directory. The list is in no particular order. The concluding paragraph shows those for whom I have even less information. I wanted to include them; it seemed wrong to leave them out just because I wasn’t able to put together much information about their lives.
Rod Martin. Crop of CVA 132-1.
JamesRoderick (Rod) Martin (1889-1973). Martin’s first occupation was in the hotel business. He was a partner with William Routley in ownership of the landmark Coquitlam Hotel on the south side of Dewdney Trunk Road across the street from the CPR Depot. The hotel burned in the big Port Coquitlam fire of 1920 (World 6 Aug 1920). It isn’t clear whether the fire made his mind up to go into the theatre biz or if he’d already made that decision before the fire, but he seems to have made the leap by the 1920s. He married Alice May Welcher (1894-1977) in 1914 when they were still living in Port Coquitlam.
Walter Henry Blake (1887-1957). He began his working life as a Vaudevillian “hoofer” (slang for tap dancer) (Province 4 Nov 1939). He started his backstage career at People’s Theatre around the turn of the 20th century, moved to the original Pantages after that, and in the ‘30s, he worked the Beacon Theatre. He retired four years before his death, leaving a job as utility man at Theatre Under the Stars in the early ‘50s. He was known in the trade as a “flyman,” the stage hand who handles the fly ropes (Sun 4 Sept 1957). Blake married Janet Davis.
George D. Collins. This gent may not “count” strictly speaking as a stage hand, as he was an independent carpentry contractor from Montreal, but I’m including him because he was largely responsible for the construction and outfitting of the Vancouver Opera House, our first fully-outfitted playhouse. Collins later was an advance man for Bronson and Derville’s comedy company (which was a short-lived outfit) (News-Advertiser 9 Dec 1891).
Mutt Martin. Crop of CVA 132-3.
Gordon Charles (Mutt) Martin (1886-1956). He worked backstage at the Pantages (it isn’t clear which one), Beacon, and Orpheum (again, it isn’t clear which one) Theatres (Sun, 6 March 1956). He was at the Capitol in the 1950s (Sun, 6 Sept 1955). Mutt was married to May Halley.
John C. Kloos (1856-1935). An early stage manager employed by Ernest R. Ricketts at the Vancouver Opera House from 1903-1906. He was brought by Ricketts to Vancouver from the United States (one of Kloos’s recent jobs was in Pittsburgh, Kansas) and was praised greatly for the wide experience and technical ability which he brought to the local stage.
Kloos was wise enough to see the value of continuing ed among stage hands, but savvy enough to know that doing so in a classroom setting would not be productive. What he needed was something practical. So he arranged for stage hands at the Vancouver Opera House to take on their colleagues at the People’s Theatre in a stage-setting contest:
The People’s Theatre crew went at it first, and set a handsome “interior” scene in exactly seven minutes. Then they struck it again [presumably, this means they dismantled the scene] in four minutes. The Opera House crew then undertook the same stunt, but they were ten seconds longer in setting. The work of both crews was then criticized by Mr. Kloos….
Province 26 June 1905
The People’s Theatre crew won.
Kloos was also instrumental in bringing the IATSE to Vancouver and he served on the local’s executive. He left B.C. in 1906 for San Francisco. Kloos was married to Lillie Stober. He died in Highland Park, California, a suburb of Los Angeles.
Albert Henry (Harry) Robins (1884-1960). He came to Vancouver from London, England in 1901. He was the property man for awhile at the old Pantages Theatre and later went to work in the Empress and Columbia Theatres (Province 6 Jan 1960). He was married to Elizabeth Angel (1891-1989).
Frank Coates. He was a carpenter in the Empress Theatre who was crippled in an accident that occurred there in 1909. At the end of the play called “A Message from Mars”, Coates fell from “his place in the flies” some 30 feet to the stage floor, but evidently suffered no broken bones (Province 29 Oct 1909).
Frank Woodruff. A stage hand at the Imperial Theatre in 1913, he suffered a scary snake bite as part of the Sherlock Holmes play, “The Speckled Band”. During the final act of the play, apparently, a “giant cobra” sunk its fangs into Woodruff’s forearm. A doctor was called and gave him immediate attention and he evidently didn’t suffer long term effects (World 27 Nov 1913).
Buck Taylor. Crop of CVA 132-1.
William Henry (Buck) Taylor (1882-1966). He began his life in the entertainment biz by becoming a call boy at age 11 in the Vancouver Opera House (Province 15 Dec 1966). He became a full-time stage hand in 1903 and went on to work in that capacity in most local theatres. Taylor’s specialization was as a stage electrician, but he truly was a “stage hand” in the fullest sense, and could (and did) turn his hand to most anything. In a Province feature (by later CBC radio luminary, Clyde Gilmour), Taylor’s professional life was described. In particular, his time as senior stage hand at the Strand Theatre in the ‘40s. At a concert, if the grand piano lid had to be lifted during the concert, Taylor would stroll onto the stage to do the deed and would then take a bow before the audience, who would invariably clap (Province 16 Jan 1948). He was married to Della Garland (1898-1963).
Sidney (Sid) A. Summers (?-1958). He was a stage carpenter at the Orpheum in 1921 (World 23 July 1921). Apparently, during Harry Belafonte’s tour which included Vancouver (at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre) in the 1950s, Belafonte “begged” to have Summers join his team for the balance of his tour through the Pacific Northwest, so impressed was he with the skills of the veteran stage hand (Sun 27 July 1963). Whether Belafonte’s pleas were met with an affirmative isn’t clear. Summers was married to Mary Cody (1888-1968).
William (Wallace) Copp (1878-1938). Copp was a stage carpenter at People’s Theatre in 1905. He was struck by a piece of scenery and rendered unconscious. It was quite some time before he revived (World 17 Feb 1905). He married Manilla Woodworth in 1909.
Barney McGlone Crop of CVA 132-3.
Jack McCance (1886-1962) was Gail McCance’s father, written up here. Arthur Elwood was stage hand at the Royal Theatre in 1919. W. J. Park (1880-?) was stage hand at Pantages Theatre in 1923. John Hood (1875–?) was a stage hand at Orpheum Theatre (on west side of 700 block Granville) in 1923. Jack Andrews was a stage carpenter in 1923. Jack Anderson was a stage hand at the Empress Theatre in 1919. James Barr was a stage hand at the Empress Theatre in 1919. Reginald Patrick Devine was a stage hand in 1928 (Province 20 Sept 1928). Gordon Martin was a stage hand at the Imperial and Beacon Theatres (Province 13 June 1941).He was also a stage hand at the Empress Theatre in 1926. FrederickWilliam (Bill) Baker (1869-1907) was an early stage hand. Ira Parks was the property man at the Empress Theatre in its early years (Province 13 May 1940). Frederick Collins was a stage carpenter in 1910. Bernard (Barney) McGlone (1882-1937) trod the other side of the stage during the performance of “Rob Roy” in which he played the part of Andrew Fairservice (Province 24 Feb 1912). He was a stage hand at the original Pantages in 1919. Ernest Glover was a scenic artist at the Lyric (at Pender and Hamilton) for the Howard Stock Company in 1908. Harry Spear (?-1942) was a stage hand in Vancouver theatres. He died in San Francisco where he was living with his family at the time. Frankie Killain was a stage carpenter at Capitol Theatre in 1927. A. J. Theal was a scenic artist working at the Empress Theatre in 1908. Edgar McKie (?-1918) was a scenic artist in Vancouver where he painted the production scenery for F. Stuart Whyte’s pantos, “Aladdin” and “Robinson Crusoe” (World 14 Feb 1918) and in his later years in Calgary, where he died. George Birrell started out as a stage mechanic and became stage manager at the People’s Theatre (Province 20 Nov 1905). “Fats” Robinson was an early stage hand (Province, 1 May 1965). Adoniran (Ad) Nehemiah Harrington (1871-1918) was the leading stage hand at the Avenue Theatre in his later years (World, 19 April 1918). O.D. Bailey was stage director at the Lyric in 1910. Ferry Creon was stage manager at the National Theatre in 1910. James B. Norton was assistant stage manager at the Lyric in 1910. Henry Russell was stage manager at the Grand Theatre in 1910. Frank Woodworth was stage manager at the Grand Theatre in 1906 and at the Orpheum in 1910. He was awarded the Military Medal for service during the Great War (World, 12 Nov 1921). Alfred Levi Harmon Harrington (1873-1957) worked backstage at the Empress, Avenue and Imperial Theatres; at the original and new Pantages, at the Vancouver Opera House and the Grand Theatre. He finished up at the Theatre Under the Stars. He married Susan Lutz. Bob Taylor was stage carpenter at the Orpheum in 1921 (World 23 July 1921).
CVA 132-5 – Rod Martin (centre, necktie), with fellow employees, probably at Theatre Under the Stars 1953 production of “Carousel”.
James Edwin Machin, the librarian of Vancouver’s Free Library and Reading Room, later known as Vancouver Public Library, from 1890 – 1910, was not a trained librarian. But he was, along with his wife and daughter, a great lover of books, and of people — a desirable but uncommon combination.
Before Machin became the librarian, the Free Library and Reading Room was in the care of George R. Pollay (1888-1890) and before Pollay, Alfred J. Morton (1887-1888).
Machin was a lawyer by profession and arrived in Canada in November 1889, with his wife, Eliza, and daughter, Elsie. Machin’s starting salary was woefully small: $65/month. It was boosted to $100/month in 1893, but it remained at that level until 1898. (History of the Vancouver Public Library, 1975, p.16). Mrs. Machin and Elsie Machin both lent voluntary assistance in the library.
The library in 1890 was open from 9am – 10pm. Borrowers had to make requests for titles which the librarian handed them from the shelves.
Under Machin, the library was as much a social centre as a place to consult periodicals and books. Starting in 1892 and continuing for as long as Machin was librarian, the Machin family sponsored a free Christmas spread for all of the unfortunate down-and-outers who cared to partake. Unlike the Union Gospel Mission Christmas meals today, however, Machin’s meals had an amateur entertainment component. Music, recitations, and the like were performed.
CVA Bu P118 – YMCA Building in which the Vancouver Free Library and Reading Room would have its home from 1893-1903. The figure at left is Edwin Machin. 1893, Bailey Bros. photo.
The library was located during Machin’s early years as librarian at 144 Cordova (between Abbott and Cambie; on the floor above Robertson Bros. Stoves and Tinware). By 1890, debate had begun as to where to move the library, as the Cordova digs were considered by nearly everyone to be woefully inadequate. One early contender was the “hall in the upper floor” of the City Market Hall (Daily News Advertiser 19 Sept 1890). By 1891, the Market Hall idea seems to have been set aside and there was talk of whether the CPR would be willing to donate one of its properties for use of the library (Daily News Advertiser, 21 Apr 1891). Nothing came of this proposal. Finally, in late 1892, the Library Board gave consideration to renting part of the “new Y.M.C.A. building” for the library. The lease was finalized in mid-1893.1 Finally, the library was shifted from Cordova Street to its new digs on West Hastings and Cambie (roughly located where Purebread bakery is today). This would be its home for the next decade.2
Upon moving into the Y building, it was noted that “Mr. Machin is at present engaged in preparing a catalogue of the books in the library of which there are at present over 2,000…” (Daily News Advertiser, 14 July 1893). It isn’t clear from press reports of the time just what system of cataloguing was practiced at this time, but it seems very unlikely that it was the Dewey Decimal System. Indeed, cataloguing did not seem to involve cards until after it moved to Carnegie Library. Instead, the various titles were typed up onto sheets of paper (possibly organized by themes, such as “Theology”, “Geology”, etc.) and the sheets were then printed by a local printer so that there would be catalogues available not only for in-library use, but also for patrons to purchase for a nominal sum and take home with them.
As time went by, there was invented a means of keeping track of which books were “in” the library and which were “out”. One variation on this invention was called “Cotgreave’s Library Indicator”, invented by A. Cotgreave. An indicator was installed in Vancouver’s library in 1898.
A witty letter to the editor from “C. Gaylin” (which appears to have been a pen name) may have summed up the confusion of many patrons when faced with this invention:
In the good old days we used to request the courteous librarian to give us “No.— or if that is out No.—, please” and in five minutes we were on our homeward way. Now we go to a table where there is a signboard which has printed upon it a wordy description of the indicator and numerous rules telling how it is to be used. A bright person may learn the rules in half an hour or so and be able to apply them. I am not bright and have not learned them yet. Then there is the indicator itself, a tall, forbidding glass frame over a white board whereon are stamped 12,000 numbers in small narrow black figures. [the “12,000” figure is undoubtedly hyperbole, as the Free Library at this time had no more than about 3000 books]. The numbers represent the books. So much I have learned. Under each number is a hole — a wee hole — and in each wee hole a wee-er scarlet peg. When No. 50, for instance, is “out” then the peg under 50 is also out. If the peg remains in its hole then 50 is on the shelf. After studying that black and white board for a second or two one can distinguish nothing but an animated blur. As for the top numbers, no one can see them at all, except Goliath, and he is dead. Shortsighted people need not look. They cannot see anything. The effect of the black and white is bad enough for one’s eyes, but when added to it you have 12,000 scarlet peg heads piercing your eyeballs like so many red-not needles, there is even greater opening here for oculists.
Province, 13 Aug 1898
All of the fuss generated by whether a book was “in” or “out” could have been resolved by granting patrons access to the bookshelves! It would have been obvious when a book was “out”, as it would not be present in its place on the shelf. It isn’t clear how long the indicator lasted at Vancouver’s library, but I suspect not long.
In a mention made in 1896, there was the first press reference I could find to “tickets” being issued to new members. A library ticket was not a negative thing. It was the same thing as today we’d refer to as a “library card”.
A blank form for patrons of 1890s VPL to apply for a borrower’s ticket and for someone who could speak to the good character of the applicant to recommend him/her.
A “borrowers’ ticket” is referred to in the form shown above. This blank form evidently was completed by an applicant for a borrower’s ticket and by someone who could attest to the wanna-be-new-borrower’s good character. Note that in the small print at the bottom of the form, the endorser could withdraw their “guarantee” of the new borrower’s character if they later learned that he/she was a ne’er-do-well! Just what these “tickets” looked like, we can only speculate, as none of the Vancouver library examples, so far as I know, survive. But I wonder if they might have resembled the example at left of a ticket from Market Lavington Library in England.
By 1899, there was already talk of a new building expressly for the library, mainly because the lease at the Hastings/Cambie building was to expire in June, 1900. In 1899, it was the original courthouse (on the site where Victory Square is today) which was initially in favour. Nothing came of that proposal (Province, 4 March 1899). In the same year, the SW corner of Hastings at Westminster (now, Main St.) was proposed. The feature most desirable about this site was that it was already owned by the City and, therefore, there would be no cost to acquire the site.
In March 1901, New York millionaire, Andrew Carnegie, offered the City of Vancouver $50,000 to build the Carnegie Library. Carnegie had just two conditions: (1) that the city furnish a site and (2) that the city spend $5000 on its library. The city and the library board were both very chuffed to receive this news, needless to say! Now, as to the location, work had to be done.
In May 1901, Mayor Townley had had a tete-a-tete with CPR mucky-muck, Richard Marpole, with a view to getting the CPR to donate a site free of charge. Apparently, Marpole favoured the property on the SE corner of Cordova at Seymour (kitty-corner to the CPR Station, now Waterfront Station) (Daily News Advertiser 11 May 1901). But, having made this remark to Townley, Marpole and the CPR proved very difficult to pin down. Ultimately, the City, feeling pressed for time, decided not to pursue the CPR further on the proposed Cordova/Seymour lot. Instead, the purchase of the lots (for $8,800) on the NW corner of Pender at Hamilton was proposed – where Avenue Road is located today (World 23 July 1901). City Council was nearly evenly divided on the question of whether they supported the West location (Pender/Hamilton) or the East End alternative (Hastings/Westminster). Finally, it was decided to put it to a vote of the people.3 On August, 3, 1901, Vancouverites voted in favour of the Carnegie Library being located at the Hastings/Westminster site. The Carnegie Library was designed by architect G. W. Grant, contractor: Albert Adams; it opened its doors to the public in late 1903.
In October of 1909, Edwin Machin was involved in an accident while disembarking from a tram car. He subsequently retired from his position as librarian and just a few weeks later, in early 1910, succumbed to internal injuries sustained in the accident and died (Weekly News-Advertiser 5 April 1910)
CVA Port P286. Portrait of Edwin Machin with his remarkable moustache, 190-. Wadds Bros.
Ex-Alderman A. E. Goodman was (briefly) Machin’s replacement in the library. This seems to have been a pretty blatant example of “jobs for the boys”. Goodman resigned within a year of being appointed after being the subject of pretty critical newspaper coverage of his lack of credentials and earning more than twice the salary paid to Machin (World 8 Feb 1910).
The portrait of Machin made by Wadds Bros. (at right) was mounted on a wall of the reference room of the Carnegie Library after his passing as a mark of lasting affection for the man who loved both books and people.
Notes
1The “new Y building” was probably misnamed, as the structure wasn’t owned by the Y, but by the Rand Bros. (later by Credit Foncier, I believe). When, a few years later, the Y was forced to move out of this building for inability to pay meet their lease amount, the building became known (in the press, at least) as the Free Library Building, although the city and library had NOT agreed to pay the owner the asking amount of $33,000 for the structure. They remained tenants until the Carnegie Library was built.
2Nearly a year after the library had moved into the Y digs, apparently there was still signage for the Library/Reading Room at their old Cordova Street address! A couple of letters to the editor mentioned this oversight (Weekly World, 15 March 1894).
3Of course, the voters in 1901 were quite distinct from the those of 2023. We were still several years away from achieving women’s suffrage in B.C. (1917). To say nothing of Chinese (1947), Aboriginal (1949), Japanese (1949), and incarcerated persons suffrage (2002).
The home at 800 Keefer has stood for many years. About 125, in fact! During its time, there have been many occupants of the place: residence dwellers, businesses, and artisans. There have been several owners, and even more tenants over the years (we will focus primarily on owners in this post).
The first recorded resident at 800 Keefer Street appears to have been George W. Maynard, a carpenter and foreman.1 He seems to have been about 29 when he moved into the home circa 1898 with his wife, Mary, and their infant son. Their boy died the same year that they moved into the home. Maynard had a colourful future ahead of him. In 1908 he was charged (along with a Mr. Sharman) with falsifying the payrolls of BC Electric Railway, of which company he was a foreman (Province 8 Sept 1908). Sharman was found guilty, but Maynard jumped bail and skedaddled out of the country (presumably to the U.S.) for several months. In 1909, upon his return to Vancouver, he was charged with cheque forging while in the employ of the rail company and was jailed for some months (Province 15 Dec 1909).
Henry Dowse took up residence at 800 Keefer in 1901 and remained there until 1910. Dowse was a contractor/builder and a senior member of the firm Carver & Dowse. He moved to Los Angeles shortly after moving out of Keefer and died in L.A. in 1916.
By 1911, Captain Paul Zellinsky and his wife, Annie, had moved in. Zellinsky was a master mariner. His career focussed on captaining tugboats. The Zellinskys were at the home through 1916. The couple lived on Keefer Street with their adult sons Victor (a draper with Edgetts’s grocery store) and Frederick (a clerk with Northern Electric Co.), and an adult daughter, Nellie (an employee of J. Leckie Co., a shoe retailer).
In 1917, Adam Jack moved into 800 Keefer; he stayed there very briefly, moving out less than a year later. He was a brick builder and contractor who specialized in kilns, furnaces, and boilers.
In 1918, the Keefer property saw John Waite move in. He was a security guard (or a “watchman”, to borrow the parlance of the time). Waite moved out of Keefer in 1921. Nearly 25 years after Waite moved from Keefer, when he was 60, he was still a watchman, at that time for the parkade at the Georgia Medical-Dental Building (at Hornby and Georgia). While he was working there one night in 1944, he was beaten unconscious by a thief wielding a tire iron who stole $800 in cash from the cash box (Sun 27 May 1944). Remarkably, Waite survived the beating.
Edward Constable moved into Keefer in 1922. He was a second-hand dealer on Victoria Drive. He remained at Keefer less than a year.
In 1923, Yuen Gow moved in. It is remarkable that his full name is cited in the city directory; typically, Chinese residents were referred to at this time as “Chinese” or “Oriental” rather than with their names. But I take it that he was relatively well-to-do because, upon his death in 1922, his body was shipped to China for burial. Further, it was stated in his obituary that “he owned extensive properties throughout the province.” (Sun 28 Jun 1922). Then, as now, money talks! He remained at Keefer into 1926.
A Mrs. A. Cymbiuk was resident at Keefer in 1927. I was unable to learn anything about Mrs. Cymbiuk, except that she had a very brief time at Keefer. I suspect Edward Constable, Adam Jack, and Mrs. Cymbiuk were tenants, rather than owners.
Less than a year later, Mrs. J. Johnson moved in. Not much is known about Mrs. Johnson, either, except that she was responsible for constructing a garage at 800 Keefer. Johnson remained a resident of Keefer until circa 1934.
When Mrs. Johnson moved out, a commercial establishment moved in: Montreal Bakery with proprietor, Lucien Zanon (together with his wife, Cecelia). A couple of years prior to moving into 800 Keefer, Zanon had his baking business across Hawks Street but, finding that space too cramped, he moved across the street in 1935. Zanon was responsible for building the Art Deco inspired commercial structures surrounding the home.
Zanon’s eyesight was never optimal, and he was forced to retire from the business in 1948 due to blindness. The Montreal Bakery folded in 1955. Lucien died in 1957. Cecelia died in 1968.
Following the retirement of the Zanons, Willibald Tafferner took over the bakery, naming it Willy’s Bakery. Willy’s lasted until 1966. The Zanon family continued to live there and they also operated a convenience store at the site. The store can be seen in one of Fred Herzog’s photos, Black Cat (1968).
In 1971, Pong C. Quan bought 800 Keefer. He remained there into his 90s, renting out empty rooms to tenants, until 1993.
In 1993, six artists who were known as the Paneficio group (named after the Italian word for bread as a homage to the bakeries that had been on the site) moved into 800 Keefer. Two of the owner-residents of Paneficio, Arnt and Valerie Arntzen were founders of the East Side Culture Crawl. The Arntzens (and the current incarnation of Paneficio) still reside/work at 800 Keefer.
Note:
1At least one source disagrees with me. He claims that the home was built in 1894. But I couldn’t find any evidence of that in building permit records or city directories.
“In this image members of the Lotus Skyliners prepare for a 19-day tour of Oregon and California cities. The band was made up of 20 male musicians and female vocalist Pat Nakashima. They were directed by Don Kinsley, a Seattle teacher. Welcoming the band onto the Northwest Greyhound Lines bus is driver E. G. Rhodes.” Museum of History and Industry, Seattle. Photo by Royal C. Crooks, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 1956. (Akira remembered that the driver for their California/Oregon trip was the same driver for their Vancouver gig). Akira described himself in this and other photos of the band as “the creepy-looking guy in the black glasses”. That was unhelpful with this photo, though, as there are at least three gents with black glasses!
Probably sometime in 1955 or 1956, a group of mostly young men came from Seattle to play at a Vancouver dance at the Pender Auditorium. One of those men would become some 30 years later my favourite undergrad professor of Political Science at the University of Lethbridge and my good friend, AkiraIchikawa.
Akira. August 2011. MDM Photo.
Akira died on January 3rd this year. In the months before his death, I pestered Akira for details pertaining to the Skyliners’ visit to Vancouver. That information, although quite sketchy, is in this post. If any of my readers recall being at the dance where the Skyliners played, or otherwise know of the group, I’d be obliged if you’d comment below.
The Lotus Skyliners band was sponsored by the Seattle Betsuin Buddhist Temple and all of the members were of Japanese ancestry. All groups sponsored by the Temple carried the name “Lotus”. Akira told me that the name “Skyliners” was borrowed from the Charlie Barnett tune of that name. He mentioned that although the band had that tune in their portfolio of music, “we were never really able to play it”. (Apparently, the first name given the band was the “Royal Knights” but “the Skyliners” was thought to be much preferable to that, and so the initial name didn’t stick for long).
The Skyliners had their start in 1953 and endured until Akira graduated high school in 1956. The group seems to have been started and led by Don Kinsley, a white gent who was a Seattle music teacher. Not much else seems to be known about Kinsely or the band, for that matter.1 Akira played piano for the band. (He told me with characteristic modesty that he “sat at the piano” rather than played it!)
Unknown newspaper photo. Akira is at the piano with his back to the photographer. Shinya Ichikawa is Akira’s younger brother. Mamo Yoshida is, I believe, aka Ron Yoshida (a good friend to Akira over many years and a colleague of his at the University of Lethbridge in the Philosophy Department).
Very, very little is known of the Vancouver dance except for one thing: the location. It was held at the Pender Auditorium on the north side of the 300 block of West Pender Street.
CVA 780-16 – Buildings and businesses in the 300 block West Pender Street. 1960-80. Photographer unknown. The entry to the Pender Auditorium is marked by the “Dance” marquee. This building is long gone.
Between Thomas and Eustace Shearman, these brothers had the weather biz in Vancouver pretty well tied up for the best part of half a century. These were the days before every media outlet had its own meteorologists on staff (preferably, today, those that are long on looks and if possible, female); this was the period in the first half of the 20th century when the federal government had a virtual monopoly on people who were so trained and the local staffer was known affectionately (most of the time) as the “Weather Man” or “Weather Prophet”.
Thomas S. H. Shearman, the eldest brother, was born in 1859 and apparently remained single all his days (he died in 1944). He should not be confused with his father, Thomas Stimson Shearman (1834-1933), who was a machinist and was married to Jane Evans. A brother, resident in Vancouver for much of his adult life was Arthur Evans Shearman (1862-1930), who earned a living as a contractor/painter. Eustace Becket Shearman (1873-1955) married Bertha Olive Shearman (1876-1951) and he became Vancouver’s second Weather Man. There were two other siblings who lived to adulthood, Ruyter Stimson Sherman (1866-1941) — note that he changed the spelling of his surname, slightly. Ruyter married Nellie Sage (1863-1943) and he became a teacher and later principal at Seymour School. A sister, Jane Rees Shearman (1844-1923), married Walter Hardwick. Two other siblings didn’t survive into adulthood: a brother, W. E. Shearman, and a sister, Mary Shearman.
T. S. H. and E. B. Shearman are the focus of this post. They became, in turn, meteorologists attached to the federal government’s Vancouver weather bureau. The first of them, Thomas, from 1904-1925; and Eustace, Thomas’s assistant at the weather bureau, who succeeded him.
T. S. H. Shearman
CVA Port N332. T. S. H. Shearman.
The story begins quite a distance from Vancouver. T. S. H. (as he was almost invariably known; his middle initials stood for Springett Henry) lived in Ontario for the first four decades of his life, in Brantford first, and later in Woodstock. It isn’t clear just what education/training T. S. H. had, but it seems that some of his post-secondary education was at Woodstock College. The College had Baptist origins, but the Shearmans were, as far as I can tell, Methodists (if anything), so it doesn’t appear to have been his faith that took T. S. H. to Woodstock College. Presumably, however, Thomas had additional training elsewhere, as he claimed to have the — now archaic? — probably meteorology-related graduate degree designation of M. B. A. A. (Province, 30 Oct 1916).
In his later years in Ontario, T. S. H. seemed to be employed by the feds as a meteorologist. But I’m assuming that that alone didn’t give him a living wage, as there is some evidence that he worked also in a bicycle shop.
In 1904, T. S. H. moved to Vancouver. Why isn’t clear. But it appears to have been a family decision, as his siblings and parents came with him. Ruyter had come to Vancouver as early as 1894.
T. S. H. became the first Vancouver “Weather Man” in 1904. The Dominion government established its first office in “West Fairview” in that year (Province, March 30, 1905) with Shearman running it. The office remained there (someplace on West 6th Avenue, evidently, probably at the Shearman residence on 6th near Pine) until 1914, when, with help from local M.P., H. H. Stevens, intervention was made to move and improve the weather “observatory”. From this point, the office would be located on the top floor of the Post Office building at Granville and Hastings. In addition, there would be an electrical hookup between the weather office and the 9 O’Clock Gun at Stanley Park. Starting then, the Gun would be triggered from the weather office instead of from the C.P.R. office whence, since 1898, it had been fired upon receipt of the ‘correct time’ from Montreal via telegraph (Daily Advertiser, 8 Jan 1914).1 The “button” for firing the Gun was located in the Post Office space allotted to the meteorologist, thus necessitating that T. S. H. be present in the office at 9pm every night!
I get the impression that T. S. H. was a bit bored being the Dominion meteorologist in Vancouver. I think there were a couple of reasons for that. First, his role was as a weather “observer” (recording the weather that had happened), not as a forecaster. All forecasts for the City of Vancouver were prepared in Victoria.
Second, T. S. H. seems to have considered himself an astronomer every bit as much as a meteorologist, and the job didn’t really allow him scope to be an astronomer, too. He was passionate about constructing a 10-foot diameter telescope. He initially had plans for it to be built atop Grouse Mountain, before the Great War. Later, he made a pitch for it to be placed on the Point Grey grounds of UBC and also at Hastings Park. None of these plans bore fruit, and T. S. H. worked hard in his retirement years to get the telescope built, in turn, in Seattle and on the Hawaiian Islands. Again, no dice.
J. S. Plaskett, a bigwig in the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, had this to say in 1916 of Shearman’s plan for Grouse Mountain: “I am afraid he condemns himself by his own words as a dreamer for I do not see how any practical man could talk of mounting a ten foot mirror with wooden appliances. He called on me last year . . . and I tried to get some definite information as to how he proposed to cast, grind, and mount a ten foot mirror but he skillfully evaded the issue and although I believe he is sincere enough I would be very unwilling to invest any money in such an enterprise.”
Plaskett’s opinion of Shearman and his various plans for a 10-foot telescope seemed to be shared by potential investors in each project, for all of them failed to stir the needed interest or dollars. This left T. H. S. bitter, declaring Vancouverites as “apathetic” to matters astronomical because the residents of the city didn’t share his enthusiasm for his pet projects (Sun, 9 Nov 1919).
E. B. Shearman
CVA Port N332. E. B. Shearman.
In 1925, T. H. S. retired from his post as Dominion meteorologist in Vancouver and handed the reigns for the Vancouver weather bureau to his assistant, brother Eustace.
In early 1928, the weather bureau office moved again. This time from the Post Office block to the “Stock Exchange Building”. The stock exchange wasn’t at this time in the large block at the NW corner of Pender and Howe. It was the Leigh Spencer building at 553 Granville (near Dunsmuir). The weather bureau remained there until 1931 when the Vancouver Airport opened. From then on, observations and forecasts were made from the airport.
Eustace seems not to have had many outside interests besides the weather to distract him, except for annual summer vacations to the family cabin on Savary Island. He had the correct intuition — which T. H. S. didn’t seem to have — that the job was as much about public relations as it was about science. In short, Eustace had the right temperament to be a Weather Man. The number of mentions of “E. B. Shearman, the Weather Man” in local newspapers rose to at least 3/paper/month for most of then years that Eustace was on the job.. It had never been so high in Thomas’s day and would never reach that number again after Eustace retired in 1948.
Notes
1A crossing of electrical wires — those that carried power to Stanley Park’s electrical lights with the one carrying current between the Post Office and the Gun — occurred just a few months after this, in October 1914. This caused the Gun to ‘fire’ at a time different from 9 o’clock and caused some residents in the area to believe that “the German cruisers had at last arrived in Burrard Inlet…” (Daily Advertiser, 23 Oct 1914).
CVA 786-7.16 – The Elcho Apartments and commercial properties (including the Davie Art Shop, Nora Goodall Antiques, and Mitchell TV), 845 Davie Street, 1978. Photographer unknown.
The Elcho Apartments (and commercial) building was on the NE corner of Davie and Hornby at 845 Davie Street. The block was built for the Hood Bros. (William B. and Robert A. Hood, real estate brokers) in ca1908.
Where does the name, “Elcho” come from? It seems probable that it was derived from Scottish history, given that the Hoods hailed from Scotland. It may be a tribute to Lord Elcho and/or Elcho Castle.
The Elcho was apparently demolished circa 1978. Currently on the site is an office tower with commercial space at street level, including an outlet of Breka Bakery.
Elcho Tenants
I’m going to introduce you to a few of the tenants of the Elcho from the 1912-1950s period. With one exception, these were ordinary people; not celebrities by any stretch. Most residents of the Elcho didn’t stay there for long – typically for a two- or three-year period. It was most uncommon for residents to remain there for a decade or longer.
The Elcho’s longest-tern tenant was JamesC. McNaughton, a Scot who served as the building’s caretaker from 1925-46. He married Mary. James died in 1951, while still residing at the Elcho, at age 74.
The most notable tenant of The Elcho whom I could find was hockey worthy, Frank A. Patrick, living at the Elcho 1912-14. His Vancouver Millionaires hockey team was successful in winning the Stanley Cup in 1915. He also married Catherine M. Porter that year. He died at age 74 in 1960.
Alfred O. Swanby was a noteworthy officer in the Great War. He started the war with the rank of lieutenant and was demobilized with the rank of major. He was wounded twice: at Vimy Ridge and Ypres (Province 16 March 1929). City directories show him being a resident of the Elcho in 1921-22. His marriage certificate, to Dorothy E. Morgan, shows him as an accountant after the war. He died at age 34 in 1929. It isn’t clear what he died from, as there is no online death certificate available for him.
James Slight and Archibald Strang were both residents of the Elcho for a number of years (1922-29) and both of them were also professional bakers most of their lives. They were partners in a local Davie Street bakery known first as Slight & Strang Bakery and later, in the ’30s, as Elcho Bakery. Strang married Bertha Hartwell in 1918 and Slight married Mary McLean in 1926. Their business was at 855 Davie, likely one of the commercial spaces at the Elcho. By the 1930s, the two men and their families moved out of the Elcho. Slight purchased Clyde Apts at 1116 Harwood and both families moved into the Clyde. By 1937, the Strangs had moved out of the Clyde and into a single family dwelling less than a block away at 1142 Harwood. The Slights remained at the Clyde. Archie Strang seems to have enlisted for war service (and, while he was gone, Bertha helped support their family by working as a salesperson at Spencers department store), but by 1947, Archie was back in town working as a baker at the Tam O’Shanter Bakery in the heart of Kerrisdale on 41st Avenue (roughly where the BCAA office is located today). By 1947, James Slight had retired from professional baking; he lived a very long life, dying in 1990 at the age of 101. Strang retired from baking in 1956; he died in 1967 at age 76.
Leopold Zoller was a bar tender on C.N.R. Steamship lines for 12 years. He was married to Elizabeth Sager. Zoller died of heart disease in 1955 at the age of 59. Mr. Zoller passed away while he was still a resident at the Elcho. He was taken to Shaughnessy Hospital from wherever his final illness took place. But he was dead on arrival.
Ernest A. Dean was a railwayman who worked for the CPR. He married Winona Corning in 1909. Ernest died at a young age of gruesome injuries suffered on the job. He was working as a “spare conductor” at the Ashcroft rail yards. When the eastbound freight train of which he was conductor reached Ashcroft, Dean went ahead to throw the switch for a westbound train to pass. “It is believed as this freight passed, he attempted to board one of the cars to ride back to his train, and in doing so slipped on to the rails. He died three minutes afterwards.” Both of Dean’s legs were severed (Province 14 Sep 1925). He was 41. Well before this tragic accident, Ernest and Winona briefly resided at the Elcho in 1917 (for just a year, as far as I can tell).
Louise Tremayne was a long-term resident at the Elcho. She worked as a BC Telephones operator for most of her working life. Louise resided at the Elcho (in various suites) through most of the 1930s. She was a single person. She died in 1970 at age 82.
In 1921, King Edward High School was just 12 years old. The principal of King Ed, George Fergusson, would live only seven more years, dying suddenly in 1928. And one of the grads would live only to 1925, passing away after spending two years in Tranquille Sanitorium – which at the time was a hospital that treated tuberculosis. I find yearbooks to be at once incredibly interesting and sort of sad, as they can be reminders of the brevity of our time on this globe.
This particular yearbook (called then a “matric annual”) belonged to Frank Leong, a Chinese-Canadian who would operate with his wife, Anne, Cambie Grocery in the 4000 block (west side) of Cambie Street near King Edward Avenue. He seems to have been among the earliest enrolees in the new Technical School that had recently branched off from King Ed High School to take up occupancy in the former Labour Temple on Dunsmuir at Homer. As far as I can tell, he was the only Chinese-Canadian student at King Ed named in the 1921 annual. Frank later became a mechanical engineer in the city. Interestingly, Frank did not get any autographs from any of his classmates. This may say something about the warmth (or lack thereof) of other students for a Chinese-Canadian student. Or it may have as much to do with shyness on Frank’s part.
When I compare this yearbook with my own graduating high school yearbook, published about 60 years later, I’m struck by the differences. One was the emphasis in the 1921 annual on the graduating class. This class was referred to as the “matrics”, which I take to mean about the same thing as “graduands” or “seniors” in contemporary parlance (“matriculation”, in my day, was a term reserved for that subset of graduands who planned to apply for post-secondary studies at universities.) I could find no mention of Grade 10 students (or “sophomores” as they are referred to in the U.S.) Only “matrics” and “juniors” were given any space in the volume. Unlike my yearbook, the 1921 annual did not include a photo of each student. Even among the matrics, only those students who held an office of some description merited a photograph.
One of the most striking differences in the 1921 book is that all of the matrics have beside their names a quotation (or alleged quotation) of some sort. Some of these quotes were more appropriate than others, to my 21st century eyes. I cannot believe, for instance, that Hazel Brooks was delighted with this quotation next to her name: “Oh, gentle maiden, tell me straight; why are you so often late?” Nor do I imagine that Florence Clarke was best pleased with “A simple child that lightly draws its breath.” And W. Clark’s quotation, “An animated question mark” leaves me with little more than a giant interrogatory!
King Edward High School building was located from 1905-1973 at 12th and Laurel. It started out as “Vancouver High School and College” and was the first high school to be established south of False Creek. The “College” was the Vancouver branch of McGill, which later became UBC. King Edward High School assumed that name in 1909 upon the establishment of other “named” high schools in the city, such as Britannia. The school motto was Ad Summum — meaning to “reach for the top“, to borrow the name of a CBC high school quiz show of my generation. The “lions” of North Vancouver appear on the crest, as does also the water (Pacific Ocean, Fraser River, False Creek) which nearly surrounds the city. The school colours were blue and white. A fire destroyed the building in 1973 (Province 20 Jun 1973).
A List of King Ed Teachers
I don’t claim to have a complete record of the teachers at King Ed High School in the year our annual was published, but I’ve done my best to get the names of what I think is most of them. This is another discrepancy in the 1921 annual from mine: the teaching staff isn’t listed as a group. The only mention of teachers is as honorary presidents of sports and other clubs. The most striking feature of the list below is the overwhelming maleness of it. Only one woman appears. They are Mssrs. Armstrong, Fergusson (Principal), Vining, Grant, Woods, Chodat, Connor, MacLeish, Maggs, Hall, Ogilvie, Bell, Tait, and Miss McQueen.
A Few King Ed Students and Their Later Lives
Clarence Domoney was, atypically (and, from my perspective, mercifully), not assigned a quotation, but instead it was said of him: “A jolly good sport is C.D.; famous at basketball and rugby.” He was one of the “prefects” at King Ed. What is a prefect? Well, one would assume that the annual would offer help in defining the term, but it doesn’t: “The main aim of the prefect has been to act as an example rather than as policemen.” That is as close as the annual gets to a definition. I conclude from this that a prefect was a glorified “hall monitor”. Clarence married Elizabeth MacKenzie in 1936 and when he passed away in 1973, he was the manager of Harbour Ferries Ltd., which still exists today, offering excursions up Indian Arm.
Everett Lees was attributed the following quotation: “Strange to the world, he wore a bashful look”. You don’t find that overly enlightening about Lees? Well, I can add that he went to UBC after finishing at King Ed where he did a bachelor’s degree in Science. He was in the Science program with Chris Robson, a fellow King Ed student and the two men were Secretary and Treasurer of their class. In 1935, Everett married Kathleen Ralph. He went on to become a Geologist/Mining Engineer and in the late 1960s, created the firm known as Gulf Titanium Ltd., a Titanium mining concern. He passed away in 1980 in Vancouver.
Marjorie Thorburn’s assigned quotation was “I go to bed with a latin verse and rise with a phrase in French,” thus suggesting that she was a very studious scholar. This was evidently true, if not necesarily literally! She was recognized in 1921 as “the leading student” in all Vancouver high schools on the matriculation exams, scoring “full marks in geometry, although the paper was an unusually stiff one, made 87 per cent in chemistry, 76 in Latin authors and 75 in Latin composition” (Province 7 Oct 1921). Miss Thorburn later became a school teacher in the city — for a time teaching at Lord Beaconsfield School. She died in 2007 in Vancouver at the ripe age of 102 years.
Dorothy Moe’s quote was “Right noble is thy merit”. She was another of those who was a prefect at King Edward. She later married Gordon H. Rae and, following graduation from normal school, became a school teacher. She taught at Lord Kitchener School in the 1930s. She passed away in the city in 1997.
Frank Penwill’s (‘Penny’ to his high school friends) quotation was “His limbs are cast in manly mold for hardy sport or contest hold”, which seems to have been appropriate both at high school and later at UBC where he studied to be a dentist, but was also actively involved in sport. He was a swimming club diver while studying at UBC (he was also on UBC’s McKechnie Cup rugby team in the 1920s) and after finishing his degree, became diving coach for the UBC swim club for a year and later was on the executive of the Crescent Swimming Club in the city. He married Betty Green in 1937 and passed away in 1960 at the relatively young age of 57.
I should begin by commenting briefly on what it is that palmists do. They are palm readers. Meaning that they claim to be able to tell a person’s fortune from lines on palms. I won’t get into the details of the practice; instead, I will point readers to a link on the subject and leave it to you if you wish to chase the palmistry rabbit down its hole(s).
The earliest mention I could find of Vancouver palmists in the local press was in an August 1896 edition of the Weekly News-Advertiser. The article in question spoke of a St. James (Anglican) Church social in which “the phrenologist and the palmist were kept fully occupied, disclosing to all who sought their services much that was previously unknown to them (19 Aug 1896 Weekly News-Advertiser). This apparently lighthearted attitude to palmistry seems to have been pretty typical of Vancouver residents. It wasn’t illegal to practice palmistry. The City Council took a pretty pragmatic attitude to palmists. As long as they paid their business license ($10/year in the early period), they could practice.
Who Were They?
We don’t know much about the individuals who worked at this occupation, but we can make some remarks about the Vancouver palmists as a group, mainly from their advertisements in the press over the years.
The overwhelming majority of Vancouver palmists were women. Typically, they referred to themselves in their ads as “Madam(e)” or (infrequently) “Mrs”. Perhaps most were married; perhaps not. But the important point is that they seemed to want to be so perceived. I expect that this gave them a desired gravitas which they might not have had if they were identified as “Miss” or “Mademoiselle”.
Bu P634 – Building at SE Corner of Granville and Dunsmuir Street. Just prior to demolition. Shows Madam Rawney’s business digs on second floor, complete with the hand symbol which indicated the practice of palmistry within. 1927. W. J. Moore photo.
Province 13 Jan 1927. An ad for Madam Rawney when she was still working on West Hastings (before assuming the space shown above at Granville and Dunsmuir). I think “menthist” is a typo; probably should have been “mentalist”.
There were a couple of qualifiers that were added to the words “Palmist” and “Palmistry”. One was Egyptian Palmist. I haven’t been able to find out whether this had any meaning beyond sounding romantic. It doesn’t seem to have had much to do with the practitioner’s ethnicity. Nor, apparently, to the type of palmistry practiced. We probably will never know whether “Princess Pyterlyngero” was of Egyptian decent — or even black, for that matter (although one of her ads claims that she was born in Alexandria, Egypt). We can probably safely rule out a royal bloodline, however (Province 11 Jan 1906)!
Another common qualifier was Scientific Palmistry. “Madame Bayla” was one who so sold her services. Those, like Bayla, who put an emphasis on the science of palmistry were probably at pains to de-emphasize the “art” or the “seat of the pants” aspects of the practice. “Palmistry,” she remarked in an ad, “is a true science . . . . and she has read the hands of the most noted people in Europe and this country and . . . her patrons rank up to royalty.” (Manitoba Morning Free Press, 13 July 1904). She claimed to come from France, and that seems to be true; her actual name was Louise Robert (b. ca1877). I established that she was well-travelled in Canada. From Quebec to B.C., she covered all the principal cities thoroughly. Even some of the then-towns were graced with Bayla’s presence — including Lethbridge and tiny Frank, Alberta!
There were a couple of other more clunky qualifiers in addition to “Egyptian” and “scientific”. Seemingly, wishing to cover most of the bases, Madame Vordya sold herself as “the Royal English Egyptian Palmist” (World 25 Jan 1913). Queen Maze, however, described her work as being “the Royal English Gypsy palmist” (Sun 4 Feb 1913).
Everybody’s Wonderful! (Except When They’re Not)
One peculiar commonality among the many ads that I reviewed (from the 1890s to 1970) was the regular use of the word “wonderful”. Everyone who practiced palmistry, it seems, was “wonderful”! Permit a few examples:
“informs the public of her wonderful powers in reading the history of one’s life by examining the palms” un-named Egyptian Palmist. (World 31 March 1908)
“most wonderful delineator and gifted reader” La Fayette the Great (Province 12 June 1909)
“the wonderful palmists” un-named palmists in New Westminster (Province 15 Nov 1909)
“the wonderful Scotch palmist” John Muir (Province 24 Mar 1910)
“the wonderful card reader and palmist” Madame Damsky (World 2 July 1910)
“her wonderful gift of second sight enables her to lift the veil of mystery and reveal to you important matters of your future life.” Ceola (World 20 June 1912)
But there was at least one early palmist who did not feel so “wonderful” about herself. Lilian Field was a palmist who practiced in Victoria. However, this poor woman was judged to be insane and was moved to the hospital for the insane in New Westminster in November 1896. According to the Province, she was treated (as was typical at the time) as a criminal and only one day after being admitted in New Westminster, she was dead. What did the Province mean about her being treated as if she were a criminal? Apparently, she was bound hand and foot in shackles and was imprisoned in Victoria just as a criminal would be. Little use was made at the time of “camisoles” — which I take to be a reference to straitjackets. The Province editor summed it up well: “The principle of treating the insane as criminals is wrong and should no longer be allowed in practice” (Province 21 Nov 1896).
As the World Turned
By the early ’30s, there were changes evident in the occupation. Madame Sonia was partnering with David Spencer’s department stores. She would tell fortunes during lunch and tea hours in Spencer’s dining room. Madame X was broadcasting over CKCD and CHLS radio stations. In short, it became less common, as the years went by for palmists to function as solo acts. More and more, they relied on cafes and radio broadcasts to help them ply their trade. By the 1940s, to my surprise, the number of palmists advertising in the press fell dramatically. (I say that this surprised me, as I had expected these years to be a period of growth for palmists, given the uncertainties of war). There were just two palmists who were advertising regularly in the papers in that decade and by the ’60s that number fell to zero. I am sure that palmists continued to work in Vancouver in the ‘60s, but they made little use of the press in advertising the fact.
A related change I noted was that palmists tended less often to be based in the commercial district as the century wore on. Less frequently were they on the Granville or West Hastings “great white ways”; more often, they were in lower-rent East Hastings.
Rev. W. C. Weir, Pastor at First Baptist (Vancouver), 1890-1894. Guelph Museums.
Of all the ministers at First Baptist Church over the years, the work of W. C. Weir (1890-1894) is among the most obscure and lacking in detail. The two FBC historians — William Carmichael (1947) and Les Cummings (1987) — make remarkably scant mention of him. We don’t even know Weir’s first name. In this post, I’ll try to assemble as many facts as I can about Weir using the tools available to me which weren’t around for earlier FBC historians to draw on.
William Cornett Weir was born in 1854. He married Elizabeth Louise Dutton in 1886 (one of the witnesses of their marriage was James B. Kennedy, whom Weir would succeed as FBC’s pastor). Together, William and Elizabeth had 5 boys: Frederick (1888), William Arnold (1890), Charles (1892), Gordon (1895), and George (1898). Weir did his bachelor’s degree at Toronto and McMaster Universities and upon completing his education, accepted a call from Woolwich Street Baptist Church in 1883. He resigned his ministry at Woolwich Street after seven years with that congregation. In a 1928 Woolwich Street anniversary souvenir, it was stated that “For some time, the church had suffered from a lack of unity in spirit and action. In the summer of 1890 the smouldering embers of disharmony burst into sudden flame.”1 It was in the wake of this disharmony that Weir submitted his resignation (and, further, that about one hundred members split from Woolwich Street to start Trinity Baptist Church in Guelph).
Whatever were the specific reason(s) that motivated Weir’s departure from the Guelph church to accept the call to distant Vancouver, he assumed the FBC pulpit in short order. His swan song sermon in Guelph was on August 3rd; he arrived at the Vancouver CPR station on September 11th and was preaching at FBC on September 15th — at both morning and evening services, if you please! (Typical of early Baptist churches, since Weir travelled through Winnipeg on a Sunday, the local church there snagged him to be their guest preacher; there was little rest for anyone who could preach in those early days).
By all accounts, Weir’s ministry in Vancouver was a successful one. His preaching style was frequently described in the local press as “earnest”. And although today such a description might be perceived as damning with faint praise, I get the impression that it was not so intended at the time.
In March, 1893, Weir’s youngest child, William Arnold, contracted diptheritic croup. Arnold died. He was 3 years old (Daily World, 16 March 1893).
At the end of August, 1893, Weir submitted his first resignation to FBC. Today, when a resignation letter is submitted to an employer, the employee had better be prepared to leave; rarely are there second chances. But that wasn’t so, at least for pastors, in the early years; it was very probable that if a pastor was popular, his resignation wouldn’t be accepted by a congregation and they would request that the pastor reconsider. Weir did reconsider, ultimately deciding that he’d acted hastily and that he’d stick with FBC for awhile longer. The reason for his initial decision to resign was a difference of opinion between him and several congregants over the interpretation of a pretty obscure element of theology: millenarianism (Weekly World, 31 August 1893).
Weir and the Congregational Church minister at the time, J. W. Pedley, engaged in a public disagreement (in the local press as well as from their pulpits) as to the morality of attending the theatre. Although the two men took a great deal of time to set out their respective positions on this subject, their perspectives may be summed up as follows: Pedley argued that it wasokay to attend the theatre under some circumstances; Weir argued that it was never okay to attend the theatre, that the theatre was in and of itself evil and ought always to be avoided (Daily World, 17 January 1893).
Weir’s second resignation from FBC was in October, 1894. No fuss was made in the press, this time. His “farewell sermon” was mentioned on October 28th, and that was all (Daily News Advertiser 28 October 1894).
After leaving FBC, Weir ministered with the Baptist Church in Everett, WA from 1894-1898. Weir would succeed Rev. D. J. Pierce as the head of “Seattle University” (Post-Intelligencer, 31 May 1895). Robert Moen has established that this was not the same institution that goes by that name today — one founded by Jesuits — but rather a Baptist school.
Around the turn of the century, the Weirs returned to their home province of Ontario. Here, he served several Baptist churches, including Carleton Place in the Ottawa area and Oxford Street Baptist Church in Woodstock.
Elizabeth died of tuberculosis in July 1909. William married Emily Gertrude Laycock in December 1910.
From early in 1911, Weir had been feeling poorly and early in 1912 his illness caused him to resign from Oxford Street church in Woodstock. However, within months of resigning, he was feeling so much better that he attended the Baptist Convention of Ontario and Quebec, and “supplied” pulpits for pastors who had to be away from their home churches (Brantford Daily Expositor, 29 October 1912). Ironically, one of the last churches where he preached was a Congregational church (Daily Expositor, 19 October 1912). It isn’t mentioned in the local press if his sermon subject while preaching there pertained to the immorality of theatre attendance!
W. C. Weir died in October, 1912 at age 58 from angina.
Weir’s second wife, Emily, married a former FBC minister, Dr. H. Francis Perry in 1922 (who was minister at FBC during the move from Hamilton Street to Burrard & Nelson).
Honest confession, I was raised to believe, is good for the soul. So I need to begin this post by admitting that Jeff Wall‘s photographic work – the work for which he is best known worldwide – doesn’t really “rock my world”.
But when I was browsing through back issues of UBC’s student newspaper, The Ubyssey, recently, I discovered that Wall had a pre-photographic period as a cartoonist, and some of his drawings struck me as being quite good.
I’ve had a look at online sources of Wall’s work and cannot find any sites that show his cartoons. Therefore, I’ll share some of my favourites of Wall’s cartoons that were produced in the 1960s, when he was pursuing his B.A. and M.A. degrees at UBC. I hope you’ll enjoy these as much as I have.
The Ubyssey. February 12, 1965. This drawing accompanied an editorial which had guarded applause for a grant from MacMillan Bloedel Co. that would triple the university’s library holdings. The funding would be directed to Union College and Anglican Theological College.
The Ubyssey. November 6, 1964. This is a good caricature of Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson. It accompanied a negative review of a film about Pearson which followed the PM to work in the Parliament Buildings until he went home at day’s end. The final paragraph sums up the reviewer’s opinion of the film: “Blah Oatmeal.”
UBC Alumni Chronicle Summer 1965. This drawing accompanied an article titled “Computers in White”, which pertained to the “new” UBC hospital which was “fully computerized”.
UBC Alumni Chronicle. Summer 1965. This drawing accompanied an article titled “Problem-Solver at Work”. This was another article in a series in this edition of the Chronicle pertaining to the “wonders” of computers.
UBC Alumni Chronicle. Autumn 1965. This drawing accompanied an article titled “Mothers in Academe”.
Front cover of program for Four Party Forum on December 2, 1975. MDM’s Collection.
The Political Forum (at the Agrodome, appropriately)
The program cover shown above came to me last week, courtesy of my old friend, Bill Reimer, bookstore manager at Regent College. Within it was outlined the program for the debate which took place on December 2, 1975 and was sponsored by the Christian Action Committee of Vancouver Reachout. The Opening Address was presented by Dr. Clark Pinnock, who filled the systematic theology chair at Regent College at the time.1 Interestingly, the local press didn’t even mention Pinnock’s address. I have heard from then-Regent College president, Carl Amerding (via Reimer) that Pinnock took as his topic the Kingdom of God and how it supersedes earthly politics.2
Following Pinnock’s talk, each of the four major political party leaders running in the provincial election (due to happen a week later on December 11th) spoke. Their subject was supposed to be the “moral and ethical implications” of the provincial election. Dave Barrett (NDP and incumbent): “We (politicians) try our best to behave as [if] we really are our brother’s keeper and that’s really what life is all about.” Scott Wallace (Conservative): “The principal role of the politician is to give fair play and justice to all groups in society.” Gordon Gibson (Liberal): “There must be morals and ethics in politics because government is here to unite people and help them.” Bill Bennett (Social Credit): “Government must be the servant of the people and never the master; government must do things for people and not to people.” (Province 3 Dec 1975). He later expanded upon this by proclaiming that “The enemy of the people is big government…” but he was apparently prevented from completing his statement by boos from the crowd (Province, 3 Dec 1975). Senator Ray Perrault was Moderator of the debate and one assumes he was an effective one, as he failed to earn any press coverage for his role!
Bennett’s attendance at the debate was iffy from the get-go. About a month before it was to happen, Bennett’s campaign team said he couldn’t attend due to prior commitments. However the Christian Action Committee must have had some clout as Bennett’s team said they would try to get him to the debate somehow. And he did ultimately attend it — the only all-party-leaders debate that he would participate in in that election campaign (Sun 18 Nov 1975).3
5,500 people attended the debate. Once Pinnock and the party leaders had presented their remarks, the audience was able to ask questions of the leaders. Topics ranged from abortion to juvenile delinquency to labour issues.
Finally, there was a “Response” section on the program (just before Rev. Roy Bell led the closing prayer). Just what the Response was is vague and must not have been considered newsworthy by reporters attending the event, as nothing was said about it in either of the local papers. The responders consisted of religion writer for the Province newspaper, David W. Virtue, and the following clergy: Rev. Calvin W. Netterfield of Ellendale Heights Baptist Church, Jon L. Jessiman, past president of the United Church of Canada in B.C., and Rev. Bernice M. Gerard, pastor of Fraserview Assembly. Of the three, the most well-known was doubtless Gerard. I haven’t heard of Jessiman or Netterfield before (nor of Ellendale Baptist – which appears to have been located in Surrey).
The Vancouver Reachout (read “Evangelistic Campaign”)
The “Vancouver Reachout” was the wider context in which the Political Forum took place. Indeed, the Forum seems to have been almost an after-thought, as it wasn’t mentioned in press accounts of the Reachout until November 1975.
The Reachout was, for all intents and purposes, an evangelistic campaign led by Leighton Ford and his team, which was, in turn, part of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. Ford was a Vice-President of BGEA and Graham’s brother-in-law.4 During the Reachout, Ford traded liberally on his Canuck creds (which seem to me to have been a bit feeble; he was born in Canada). The Reachout included 150 local Greater Vancouver churches representing approximately 23 denominations.
The Reachout wasn’t a typical evangelistic campaign, however. At least, it was quite unlike the typical Graham campaigns with which so many of us are familiar (parachute the evangelist into the city, preach at the audience, and culminate with an “invitation” whilst umpteen verses of “Just As I Am” are belted out by the mass choir).
No, the Reachout was to be a two-year “people-to-people” effort.5 The inspiration for the project seems to have come from Ford’s involvement in a similar effort in Lausanne, Switzerland. A curriculum of material was prepared to assist Christians in the city to “reach out” to their non-Christian neighbours, family, and friends. There would also be a survey taken of Vancouver residents to get a better picture of who we were from a spiritual perspective. Findings of the survey included:
Roughly 2/3 of respondents were satisfied with “life as it is”
Only 7-9% felt guilty about or discouraged about the state of their lives
The primary motivation of most respondents was to “live the good life”
Most residents were not especially religious (only 22.5% claimed to be active in church)
25-30% of those interviewed were agnostic or skeptical about Christian claims.
The two-year project concluded with traditional crusade-like gatherings. The first of four such gatherings wasn’t great from an optics perspective, attendance-wise. It was held in the Pacific Coliseum which holds up to 17,000; there was an audience of 4,500 (about 1/4 full). Leighton Ford spoke on the reality of hell on another night. And on all four occasions, he issued a Graham-like invitation.
It isn’t clear whether “Just As I Am” was sung.
Notes
1Pinnock would be replaced in that chair within a few years by J. I. Packer. Pinnock’s views underwent a shift as he grew older. For example, in his 70s, he embraced “open theology” This is viewed by some Christians as heretical.
2Email message from Bill Reimer to MDM, August 22, 2022. Reimer spoke to Amerding about Pinnock’s talk at the debate.
3The press seemed to have more than the usual number of typo errors when it came to Vancouver Reachout. In this newspaper article, for example, the “ethical and moral implications” of the election, which the leaders were asked to speak on became the “moral and liberal implications” when printed. In a related article, “Vancouver Reachout” was printed as “Vancouver Beachout“!
4There had been a Billy Graham crusade in Greater Vancouver in 1965.
5In July 1975, it was announced that Reachout was sponsoring Yellow Bird Taxi which would offer free taxi service to elderly and moderately handicapped residents (Sun 5 July 1975).
CVA 70-11 – Art Grice photo. 1973. The Elphinstone Building with the iconic Scott’s Cafe at 722 Granville wedged between the Vancouver Block (with the somewhat confusing Birk’s logo atop it) to the south and the (now gone) Birk’s Block to the north. Prior to the construction of Birk’s, there were two other buildings on that site: the Strathcona and the Durham blocks.
The Elphinstone Block was the southernmost of three buildings across Granville Street from the first and second Hotels Vancouver. All three were owned by British peers (members of the House of Lords): at the SE corner of Granville and Georgia was the (Lord) Strathcona block, then the (Lord) Durham, and finally the (Lord) Elphinstone. All three seem to have been constructed in about 1888. Only the Elphinstone survived into the mid-1970s. The Strathcona and Durham were demolished so that the Birk’s Building could rise in their stead in 1912 (Province 10 Jan 1912). Oddly, the 3-storey Elphinstone was allowed to stand, squeezed uncomfortably (and with its history increasingly forgotten over the years) between the ‘skyscrapers’ on either side of it: 11-storey Birk’s and 14-storey Vancouver Block. The Elphinstone was finally demolished in 1974 along with Birk’s and the Strand Theatre to make way for Scotia Tower and the rather ho-hum Vancouver Centre.
The Lord Elphinstone who was the original owner of the Elphinstone Block was the 15th Baron Elphinstone; he was born William Buller Elphinstone (1828-1893). He was connected with the C.P.R., not least as a shareholder (Weekly News-Advertiser 2 Sept 1891). He died at his home in Edinburgh in January 1893 (World 19 Jan 1893). His heir was brother, Mount-Stuart Elphinstone, who continued the family practice of owning property in Western Canada; in 1910, he bought 60 acres near Kamloops for the purpose of growing fruit (Province 15 Aug 1911). He sold the Elphinstone block in 1911 for $125,000 (Province 2 Jan 1912). The Starbucks on Granville (722) adjacent to London Drugs is the former site of the Elphinstone Block.
The Elphinstone block served as an early home for parishioners of Christ Church in the days before they had a building of their own. Although the Elphinstone block on Granville is gone, there are various other B.C. and Canadian sites that still bear his name. There is an Elphinstone, Manitoba, Mount Elphinstone Provincial Park and a YMCA Camp Elphinstone (the latter two both loccated on the Sunshine Coast). There was a settlement in Howe Sound, at one time, called Elphinstone; it seems to have been part of what today is known as Gibson’s (Daily News Advertiser 28 Aug 1893). Doubtless there are other sites that bear the Elphinstone name.
In the early years of Vancouver, property ownership was central to the privilege of having one’s name on the voter’s list. Rudyard Kipling1 got his name on the voter’s list by this means, although he never voted here. Likewise Donald A. Smith (Lord Strathcona) and Lord Elphinstone (Province 21 Jan 1902).
I should say a little about Scott’s Cafe, as it was an iconic tenant at the Elphinstone for many years. It wasn’t the first eatery at 722 Granville, however. The Mission Confectionary seems to hold that honour (1912-1925). It was followed by the Picardy Candy Shop (1925-27), which was a Winnipeg chain of candy stores that thought it could duplicate its success in Vancouver — but didn’t, for some reason. Then came Scott’s Cafe (1927-1974). Scott’s on Granville, of course, was demolished in 1974. They opened a restaurant for a brief period on West Broadway, but by 1976 they had moved back downtown to 580 West Georgia (just around the corner from their Granville location at the SE corner of Georgia and Seymour). Scott’s endured at Georgia until 1985 when they were bought by the White Spot chain. White Spot kept the Georgia site until it was demolished just a few years ago to make way for the Telus Garden condo development.
Notes
1It was likely during his 1892 visit to Vancouver that Kipling succumbed to the wiles of a local realtor. He apparently purchased land in North Vancouver (Province 1 Oct 1907).
SGN 1542 – View of Georgia Street at Granville Street, showing parked cars and the demolition of the Strathcona and Durham blocks to make way for the Birk’s Building. The Elphinstone block (at far right) would stand until the mid-1970s. 1910-1912. Charles Bradbury photo.
In 1974, under the innovative1 Senior Pastorate of Rev. Dr. Roy Bell (1970-1981), First Baptist Church Vancouver participated for the first time in a radio broadcast of its morning service.2 The radio station – CJVB 1470 – was a relatively new one; it had been in business only since 1971.3 It was a multilingual “ethnic” station, carrying programs in Croatian, Portuguese, Estonian, Finnish, Dutch, Japanese, Chinese, Hindi, Punjabi, Hungarian, Italian, Norwegian, Ukrainian, Greek, German, Danish, and French (Province 2 May 1972). But the station’s license required it to have at least 60% of its programming in English. An inexpensive means of achieving a healthy proportion of that percentage was by providing local worship services over the air. This seems to have been something the station provided to the church free of charge (with the possible exception of some basic set-up costs).
Rev, Dr. Roy Bell
The church radio broadcasts from FBC had a similar function to the Zoom internet broadcasts of recent years: they were to serve the “shut-ins”, seniors, and others who found it difficult to attend services in person.
A major constraint of the broadcasts, however, was time. The radio station could only offer a 1-hour time slot for church services. Immediately following the FBC service there was either another church service scheduled or a news broadcast “at the top of the hour”. This meant that the service had to be very carefully timed in order to ensure that it ended exactly one hour after it began.
Linda Zlotnik was Administrative Assistant (1986-2001) to Rev. Dr. Bruce Milne, Senior Pastor (1984-2001). Linda had this to say about the radio services:
Everything, on every service, was timed to the second by Bruce . . . . If we didn’t stick to our time [in other elements of the service; the announcements, for example] there would not be time for his sermon, which came last.
Email to mdm from Linda Zlotnik, July 11, 2022.
Rev. Dr. Bruce Milne. n.d. Jennifer Friesen photo.
According to another source, when the one-hour point was approaching, a light bulb on the pulpit – visible only to the preacher – would begin to flash. Thus, a visual cue to mark the end of the broadcast. Ideally, the broadcast would fade during the singing of the final hymn.
The radio broadcasts at FBC ended in 1987. It isn’t clear whether this was partly a decision of FBC or if it was wholly the decision of CJVB. The station was sold in 1993 for over $5 million.
Notes
1During Dr. Bell’s pastorate, a folk choir was established and a coffee house ministry, known as Hobbit House at 1025 Nelson Street, came into being. Hobbit House would endure for much longer than the folk choir or the radio broadcasts!
Linda Zlotnik
2FBC wasn’t the first or only church to participate in CJVB’s radio broadcasts. The first church to take part was St. Andrew’s-Wesley United Church. First Presbyterian Church in New Westminster was another participant.
3CJVB got its last two call letters from the surname of the owner: Jan Van Bruchem. Van Bruchem and his family, apparently attended FBC from time to time.
I’m appreciative of Linda Zlotnik, Mary Cramond, Saad Zarifeh, Peter Findlay, and CathieMcGuire for their memories and willingness to share them with me for this post.
AM1052 P-211 – Weart Building (later known as the Standard Bank Building), SW Corner of Hastings at Richards Street, Vancouver, B.C. ca 1912 Valenetine and Sons Publishing Co., Ltd. Note: This is a pre-construction illustration.
Construction started on the “Weart Building” in Spring 1913; it was finished by August 1914. By the time the building opened, it was referred to as the Standard Bank Building as that was the name of the anchor tenant at the time. The name stuck, even though the Standard Bank didn’t.
The building would rise to 15 stories, even though City Council had, in 1911, passed a by-law putting a height limit of 10 stories/120 feet on downtown structures. The City later made an exception for the Standard, since its building permit had been approved prior to the height by-law being passed.
There was some early wild reportage claiming that the Standard’s height would make it the tallest in the British Empire. This was never in the cards, because by 1910 the Dominion Building was already due to exceed the planned height of the Standard (174 vs 171 feet); and, by the time the Standard was built, it would be thoroughly outstripped in height by the World Tower (17 stories/269 feet).
The anticipated building was described by the Province in 1910 – with no little hyperbole – as “a prose-poem in steel, stone and marble (Province 18 Jun 1910)”
CVA 99 – 3312 – Vancouver Harbour [view of Waterfront looking east] 1920 Stuart Thomson. Note the giant light bulbs lining the rooftop of the Standard Bank Building.
I don’t know (and I am assuming other researchers don’t know either) what year changes were made to the upper stories of the Standard. But we know that at some point, a number of the gothic flourishes along the roof were toned down to what is there today. Among these were several large light bulbs (see photo above). It isn’t clear to me whether these were purely decorative, although I’m assuming so, as it was a bit early in the century for there to be much concern with urban aeronautics and tall buildings. Stuart Thomson is the only early photographer who seems to have gotten access to the roof of the Standard in its original incarnation. This photo may be a CVA sleeper, as the location where the image was made – plainly, to me, the Standard Bank Building – wasn’t identified.
What follows is a collection of bits and pieces from print news media pertaining to the Standard:
In November 1913, there was a construction accident involving a W. M. Thompson. “While working on a scaffolding on the fifth floor . . . the scaffolding gave way. Thompson was thrown toward the ground, but just in the nick of time caught one of the steel girders from where his fellow-workmen pulled him to a position of safety. He suffered no injuries except a slightly strained back.” (World 26 Nov 1913).
In 1915, Miss Cal Young and Mrs. Frances Lohman announced that their business, Venetian Hair Co. would move out of their former digs at 767 Granville (Orpheum Building) and onto the mezzanine floor of the Standard. “Facial massage and hair dyeing are specialties with us.” Hours: 9am-6pm (M-Fri); 9am-8pm (Sat) (News Advertiser 19 Sept 1915).
“Mrs. F. Pearce . . . was the victim of a brutal attack yesterday when an unidentified bandit beat her into unconsciousness and looted the offices of the Continental Credit company, 408 Standard Bank building where she is employed. The robber obtained $7 from a desk in the office and $20 from the purse of his victim” (Sun 6 Aug 1920).
On April 1, 1941, relative newcomer to the city (from Regina 15 months before), Thomas W. Farmer “plunged 15 stories from the Standard Bank Building . . . to his death on the floor of a cafe immediately adjoining . . . . E. B. Bull sustained cuts on his head from glass which shattered from the skylight as Farmer’s body plunged into Ziegler’s Cafe, 512 West Hastings Street, where about 30 persons were having their midday meal. . . . V. C. Spink, manager of the Standard Bank Building, said the man had apparently fallen from the window of a washroom on the 15th floor of the building (Sun 2 Apr 1941). Farmer was a hotelier in Regina before moving to Vancouver, where, presumably, he’d planned to retire. He was 69.
Some of the Standard Bank Building’s tenants over its 100+ year history have included: Li Chao, Chinese Consul; Girish Mathur, Vancouver’s first Indian trade commissioner; the National Council for Canadian-Soviet Friendship; the Vancouver Detective Agency, John O’Grady, Manager, “Complete dicta-phone service”; First Church of Christ Scientist’s “free reading room”; the B.C. Aquarium Society; and, currently, the Vancouver Heritage Foundation.
J. W. Weart, former Reeve of Burnaby, who was the principal promoter of the construction of the Standard Bank Building, lived with his family for a few years after construction was completed in the penthouse of the Standard (the 15th floor) from 1914 until ca1920 (Sun 24 July 1951).
In 1952, Japan’s first post-WWII consul, Takeshi Yusakawa, had his office in an “over-size suite atop the Standard Bank Building.” Presumably, this meant that he was in the former penthouse of J. W. Weart on the 15th floor. “There is practically no trade from Japan to Canada now,” he said. “Your ships come full to us, with wheat, lumber and, at present, some heavy cargoes of iron ore from Vancouver Island. But they have to go back empty. That is bad.” (Sun 5 July 1952).
Sheridan’s Physiotherapy and Slenderizing Salon: “It’s new in this city, but already the women have heard about it and are lugging their excess fat up to room 525 Standard Bank Building. There they leave it without a parting tear.” (Not necessary, it seems, for men to lug their excess fat up to the fifth floor!) (Sun 11 Oct 1945).
The Standard, like most tall downtown buildings, was an air raid shelter during WWII.
20 years after Thomas Farmer’s death, a woman was thwarted in attempting to jump from a 15th floor window in the Standard. She later went to the Cypress Hotel, 655 Robson, and asked the manager to see a room on the top floor. She left her purse and gloves on the dresser of the room and leaped from the window. Police escorted the woman to VGH, where she was reported to be in “poor condition” with a fractured leg and ribs and internal injuries. The 45-year-old woman had earlier been a patient at Essondale (Province 3 Mar 1961).
During the Great War, strawberries, lettuce, onions, and beans were grown on the roof of the Standard in answer to the national call for additional food production (Sun 28 July 1937).
Current roof line (minus many original gothic features) of the Standard. June 28, 2022, mdm photo.
Crop of CVA Port P334 – 1888 church picnic showing, I strongly suspect, Arthur Sullivan surrounded by several ladies. Arthur Sullivan is identified on the photo at CVA as being present in the image (but it doesn’t specify where in the image he is). But, given the small number of males in the original photo and the tiny number of blacks in Vancouver at this time, I concluded that the black gent was, in fact, Arthur Sullivan.
Arthur Willis Sullivan (1860-1921) was a black pioneer who was very popular in early (and pre-) Vancouver.1 He was born in New Westminster to Philip ( – 1886), who came originally from the West Indies, and Josephine Sullivan (1818-1894), who came from the U.S. (but may have had at least one parent from France). Josephine came to the area that would become Vancouver (Granville) in 1859 from Panama aboard the S. S. Beaver (World, Aug 23, 1894). Philip cleared much of Granville of trees and stumps and he served as cook for a number of years at the Moodyville Mill (Vancouver Voters, 1886 p. 672). The Sullivans were the first Methodists living in Granville. Philip and Josephine (and Arthur and his siblings) were described in their day as being “mulattos“, a distinction not commonly made today; they would doubtless be described today simply as Black).
In 1887, when they were both 26, Arthur married Annie Elizabeth Thomson, a native of Campbellton, NB. Interestingly, he identified his profession on the marriage certificate as “Gentleman”. She died in 1909 when she was only 48. He died in 1921.
Arthur played the organ for services at St. James Anglican Church and for the Princess Street Methodist Church for a number of years.
Sullivan’s Halls
Crop of drawing showing Bird’s Eye View of Gastown ca 1875. Made by Beverly Justice for Granville Revisited, 1970. The Community Arts Council. (Annotations added by mdm). The Maple Tree (located just to the left of ‘Gassy’ Jack Deighton’s Hotel and Saloon) is at far left of drawing; the next street south of the tree (‘up’ on the drawing) is Cordova. The first Sullivan’s Hall is located on the south side of Cordova at the right.
There have been three structures associated with Arthur’s family in Vancouver and known as Sullivan’s Hall. The first building was in Old Granville from the 1870s until 1886, when it was destroyed, along with most other structures, in the Great Fire. This first Hall was built by Arthur’s father, Philip.
The second hall replaced the first one on the same property. This structure was built by 1887 by Arthur. It was in this hall that First Baptist Church held some of its early meetings. First Baptist historian, W.M. Carmichael has remarked in These Sixty Years: 1887-1947 that meetings after the Fire were held at various locations, including “Sullivan Hall, owned by a well-known coloured resident whose father had been cook at the Moodyville Mill for many years. His mother was the first Methodist in Granville” (Carmichael, p. 5). Trade unions often met in this hall (e.g., United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners).
The third Sullivan Hall was built on the north side of the same street at 61 Cordova by 1903. This building was a 3-storey brick building. Secret societies, such as the Odd Fellows often met in this hall. Some church groups also rented space there, such as the First Spiritual Church of the Soul. There were also businesses that had permanent digs in this building. The Fricke-Schenke photographic studio was one such. As the building got older, it seems that some of the space was converted into residential suites. I don’t know when the third hall was demolished, but on its site currently is a residential co-op building (adjacent to the Fortin Building).
VPL 8389. Looking NE from Abbott and Cordova. 1912. R Broadbridge photo. This shows the third (and final) Sullivan Hall. It is the tallest structure on the street near the bottom of the image.
A Ladies’ Man?
Well, the first photo in this post certainly is suggestive that Sullivan was not opposed to reclining into the laps of ladies! Perhaps I’m imagining it, but it seems to me that there is a twinkle in his eye which conveys the message pretty clearly that he was enjoying himself.
As you will see in the Changing Vancouver post, Arthur was part of a huge scandal at the time (1889) in which Sullivan and a Dr. Langis faced charges of procuring an abortion of a Mrs. Amanda Hogg with whom he was accused of having an intimate relationship while he was married to Annie (and while Amanda was married to local photographic professional, James Hogg). Although Sullivan and the doc were found “not guilty” of any crime, it remains an open question as to whether or not Sullivan committed adultery with Mrs. Hogg. I must say, however, that whenever I see the photo above, I wonder whether one of the ladies in that 1888 photo was Amanda Hogg! That will probably need to remain in the realm of historical imagination, as there doesn’t seem to be a publicly available photo identifying Mrs. Hogg! And that is probably just as well.
Notes
1The blog, Changing Vancouver, has a number of additional details pertaining to Arthur Sullivan. I will generally avoid going over ground covered by that post and will seek to add bits and pieces about the life of Sullivan that they haven’t covered. I suggest that the two posts be read in conjunction with each other.
Ruby Ellis was born in Bradford, England to Angus Ellis and Charlotte Emily Hudson in November 1905. There is no record of Charlotte having a career (but it’s likely she stayed at home to raise Ruby and her sister, Beatrice Maud). Angus was a factory worker. A year after Ruby was born, the Ellis family immigrated to Canada and by 1911 they had settled in Montreal.1
By the late 1940s, Ruby had hooked up with an American lad named Wesley John Kay, who supported himself by working in a gift shop in Niagara Falls, NY. When Ruby tried to cross the Canada/U.S. border in 1947, presumably to live with Wes in New York state, she was “debarred”. It isn’t entirely clear what the most important reason was for her debarment; it seems likely to have been due to a combination of factors: she wasn’t married to “boyfriend” Wes; she wasn’t an American citizen; she had no money on her person; and her reasons for entering the U.S. weren’t clear.
In 1955, Ruby and Wes Kay had moved together to Vancouver. They apparently got hitched at some point in the decade after Ruby’s debarment from the U.S. They were co-proprietors of Kay’s Magic Shop at 666 West Cordova, 1124 Commercial Drive, and 6166 Fraser St (they seemed to reside at the latter address).
CVA SGN 1070.05 – East side of Granville Street just south of Nelson, 1912? I figure that the Magic Book Store in 1961 (the time of Ruby’s arrest) was located just south of Cunningham Hardware in the structure with the narrow facade and the two 2nd floor bay windows.
Their 1955 ads in local papers claimed that they carried “party jokes, magic tricks, and model kits”. Another ad, a couple of years later for a shop at 1026 Granville, indicated that “DOLLS repaired, dressed. We buy and sell.” There was no mention made of books being on offer at this stage of their careers.
That had changed by 1961, when Ruby was described in Vancouver newspapers as being “a bookseller” at the same Granville Street address. In March of that year, Ruby was sentenced in Assize Court to do 18 months jail time for possession of stolen property. She had an adding machine, a typewriter, and a record player stolen from different people. Said Mr. Justice H. W. McInnes to Ruby: “The evidence indicates to me that you were carrying on the business of a fence. You were an inducement to thieves to steal by providing a ready market for their loot.” (Vancouver Sun 17 Mar 1961).
So Ruby spent the next year and a half in the hoosegow courtesy of Her Majesty’s Government. Chances are she spent that spell either in Oakalla prison (which by 1953 could accommodate 12 female inmates) or in Twin Maples Farm for women.
Wes kept the Magic and Book Store operating while jailbird Ruby served her time.
In 1965, the following incident was reported in the Sun:
An armed bandit bound a bookstore proprietor’s hands with her nylon stockings Friday night, robbed her and escaped with about $35. Ruby Kay, owner of Kay’s Magic Book Store, 307 West Pender, told police the well-dressed bandit entered the store about 8:30 p.m. and demanded money. She said he threatened her with a gun and a knife before forcing her to take off her nylons.
Vancouver Sun. 6 Feb 1965.
Crop of CVA 780-16 – North side of 300 block W. Pender, 1960-80. I’m guessing that 307 (the Kays’ shop when it was robbed in 1965) was just east of the building with the light blue facade.
I imagine that after this development, Ruby was feeling as though she couldn’t catch a break from either the cops or the robbers!
In 1967, Wes died. His early death at age 65 seems to have been due to a combination of acute renal failure and heart disease.
The Magic Book Store seemed to fold upon Wes’s death. There is no sign of it being in operation in the 1970s or 1980s. The bookshop was a second-hand store, dealing in, primarily, used paperbacks and magazines.
This post pays tribute to used and antiquarian bookshops (and their booksellers) which existed between 1970 and 2023 and are no longer operating in Vancouver. It will not include existing shops such as The Paper Hound, MacLeod’s, People’s Co-op, Lawrence, Stillman’s, Spartacus, Antiquarius, Michael Thompson, Wilkinson’sAutomobilia*, etc. In order to qualify for inclusion in this post, the shops listed need to be out of business and to have been located within Vancouver’s city limits (and to have sold principally English-language books).
Each listing shows the shop’s name, the approximate dates it was in business (in decades), the shop’s proprietor (if known) and its address(es).**
For those of you who are interested not only in Vancouver history, but also older books, you may be interested in this site where I attempted a ‘love letter’ to a few of my favourite books: https://residentinoak.home.blog/
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A-Aabaca Book Bin (1970s-1980s) – Proprietor: Lloyd Cartwright. 1247 Granville. By 1988, it was purchased by SkipMabee. See: Fraser Book Bin and ABC Book & ComicEmporium.
Albert Eddy, Nan Vie photo.
Aardvark Books (1970s-1980s) – Founder proprietor: Albert Eddy. Started in business ca 1971 at 4185 Main. By 1979, it was at 4331 Main. By 1982, ownership had changed to Fred Miller. By 1989, the name of the shop had changed slightly to Aardvark Books & Comics. There were several video machines in Aardvark by Miller’s time.
Mabee
ABC Book & Comic Emporium (1990-2010s) – Louis “Skip” Mabee, proprietor. 1247 Granville. It was bought by Mabee in 1988 after it was sold a couple of times after Ted Fraser sold it. By ca2000, the shop had a date with re-developers and it was moved over to the east side of Granville (1200 block). Within a short time, it was moved yet again by Mabee to Broadway just west of Granville, where it remained until 2012. See: Fraser Book Bin.
Acorn Books (1980s-1990s) – DonStewart, proprietor. (CatrionaStrang managed it for Stewart for about a year and then ReneeRodin took over). 321 W. Pender. Acorn was a low-end version of Stewart’s main shop, MacLeod’sBooks.
Ahrens’ Books – John Ahrens (1960s-1980s), proprietor. The shop was located at 756 Davie. It had a reputation as a chaotic (book-wise) meeting place of book people.
Ahren’s Books on Davie Street at Howe, 1981.. CVA 779 W03.24.
Ainsworth
AinsworthBooks (1930s-1990s) – A. J. Ainsworth established his shop at 321 W. Pender in 1939. He was the third generation of his family to be in the book business; he had learned the business from his father in England. A.J.A. died in 1950 at age 75. One of his daughters, Doreen Crombie, took over the business. Crombie sold the shop to Russ Cunningham in the 1980s. The shop continued under the Ainsworth name and at the same location until ca1995, when it apparently folded.
Albion Books (ca1985-2022) – David Beaver, proprietor. Location: 523 Richards Street. Beaver closed the shop in 2022. Specialties: Bestsellers, modern first editions, classics, science fiction, mysteries, new age, philosophy, vinyl LPs.
Albion Books. MDM photo. ca 2016.
Arcanum Books (1990s-2000s) – Kevin Dale McKeown, proprietor. Was open in Vancouver from 1998-2006. Location: 317A Cambie Street (one of the retail spaces beneath the rooms of Danny’s Inn). Arcanum was originally opened in Burnaby in 1969 with Everett Foley, proprietor. It had several locations just east of Boundary on Hastings, the last being where Brown’s Books is today until McKeown bought the business and moved it to Vancouver. Specialties: Religion, philosophy, metaphysics, miscellaneous conspiracy theories and inexplicable phenomena.
Belly Button Books and Novel Cafe(1980s-1990s) – Collectively owned, but according to his obituary, James C. Campbell was “very involved” in the business. He died of AIDS in 1994 and, from what I can tell, the bookshop didn’t outlive him by long. 109 W. Cordova. Generalist shop.
Better Buy Books (1960s-1990s) – Ron Webber, proprietor. 4393 W. 10th. A UBC-area source of used books. I recall finding many supplementary, out-of-print books there when I was working on my M.A. at UBC in the early 1990s.
Bidwell Books (1980s-1990s) – Dalia Sinius (later Dalia Dargis), proprietor. 824 Bidwell. This wee shop felt to me very much like a West End neighbourhood bookstore (at a time when the West End was more truly a neighbourhood). Specialties: architecture, boating, cooking, philosophy.
The Blue Heron (1980s-90s) – Alma McIntyre, proprietor (Stephen McIntyre‘s spouse). At 8321 Oak St. in 1990. By 1992, at 3516-A Main. Specialty: books about antiques/collectibles. Not sure how long this shop lasted, but it hasn’t been in business for at least a decade. Alma McIntyre died in 2005.
Black Sheep Books (1990s) – Trent & Denise Highnell, (later, George Kroller), proprietors. 2742 W. 4th Ave. When Renee Rodin decided in 1994 to sell R2B2 Books Books, the Highnell’s bought it and renamed it Black Sheep Books. It was operated by them for 4 years, after which George Kroller bought it and ran it for another 3 years under the same name. Black Sheep’s specialties: alternative literature, poetry, drama.
Bond’s Bookshop (1930s-1990s) – A generalist shop run by Francis Carradice (originally) and later by Ed R. Bowes. In the 1930s, it was located at 575 Dunsmuir. Gordon Bowes bought the Dunsmuir shop and put his son, Ed (Ned) Bowes, in charge; he was then 20. By 1969, it had moved to 523 Dunsmuir. In the late ’70s, it had moved to 579 Richards. By the 1980s, it had moved to 319 W. Hastings. It was in business there until the early 1990s, I believe. Ed Bowes died on January 21, 2021; he was working as a book scout at the time of his death.
The Book Basket (1960s-1970s) – Ted Fraser. 1070 Robson.
The Bookends (1970s-90s) – Proprietors: Gwenne and Earle Huston. 937 Davie.
The Book Mantel (1990s) and Coffee Bar – Bonnie Murray, proprietor (1990); Cynthia Brooke (1994). At 1444 Kingsway (1990); 1002 Commercial Dr. (1994). Specialities: feminist lit, poetry, philosophy.
The Book Mantel (1980s-1990s) – Was co-owned by Frank Davis, who also owned Frank’s Records next door. The Mantel had two locations: one at 2551 Alma (near 10th Ave., approximately where Buntain Insurance is today); the other in Kerrisdale at 2065 West 41st. The shop seems to have closed ca1990. Davis died in 2017. Specialties: Classics, art, music, theatre, poetry, philosophy, natural history and science.
Busy ‘B’ (1920s-1970s) – George Biswanger, proprietor. The shop started in 1926 at 706 Seymour and advertised itself as selling “2nd hand goods”; books were not specified. It moved by 1927 to 540 W. Pender. By 1955, it had expanded to become two shops, both called “Busy B Book and [postage, presumbaly] Stamp” store at 445 W. Pender and 508 Richards. Biswanger died in 1966 (after which Don Duggan seemed to be proprietor, at least for awhile). Busy ‘B’ carried on through the mid-1970s; it seems finally to have folded by ca1976 (closing its final location at 748 E Broadway). Note: There is a photo which shows another outlet of Busy ‘B’ at 144 (shown in at least one record as “146”) West Hastings in 1968. (I’m indebted to Angus McIntyre and Gordon Watson for their help with the history of Busy ‘B’).
748 E Broadway location.
Carillon Books (1990s) – George Carroll, proprietor. 1926 W. 4th Ave. (1994). 822 Howe St. (1996). In 1998, the shop moved across the inlet to North Vancouver. I patronized Carroll’s Howe shop. I remember being on a Tchaikovsky kick in the late ‘80s and purchasing from his shop the full orchestral score of one of T’s piano concertos.
Cat & Fiddle Bookshop (1970s) – Murray Schoolbraid, proprietor. The Point Grey shop was at 4529 W. 10th Ave. New and used books for and about children. It closed in August 1979.
Bell
Chef Bell – the Cookbook Man (1980s) – Lionel J. Bell, proprietor. The shop was located at 335 W. Pender in 1982. In 1983, he moved his “2000 cookbooks” to 434 W. Pender. He custom-built bookshelves for this space which I’m certain are the ones still in CriterionBooks, the succeeding shop in that space (which is now also defunct). Bell died in 1989.
Coho Books – Michael Baker, proprietor. 3211 Dunbar. General stock.
Shows Chef Bell’s Coookbooks entrance (to the 2nd floor) at 434 W. Pender. This is the space most recently occupied by Criterion Books. CVA 790-1852.
Collectors’ Books and Records (1980s-1990s) – David Grannis, proprietor (later, Andy Stone). 648 Kingsway. (For more details, see Gordon Watson’s comment below – 07/03/2021).
McIntosh
Colophon Books (1980s-1990s) – James F. McIntosh, proprietor. This shop was located at 407 W. Cordova. It was an excellent general shop. I remember with fondness browsing through the stacks in his second-floor shop. McIntosh died in 2019.
Colophon Books (upstairs) on Water Street. CVA 790-2118.
Connoisseur Art Books (1980s-1990s) – Proprietor, Charles Anderson. 5957 W. Boulevard. Specialties: art, collectables.
Criterion Books (1990s-2000s) – Lance McCaughran, proprietor. 434 W. Pender. I suspect that the custom bookshelves in this shop were the same ones constructed by Lionel Bell when he owned ChefBellCookbooks at this location in the 1980s. McCaughran retired ca2015 and sold most of his general stock to DonStewart (of MacLeod’sBooks). Stewart took over the space as one of his book storage locations.
DeJong Books. 7 – 980 Denman Street. General stock.
EP Books (1990s) – Ed Peasgood, proprietor. 4495 Dunbar. Specialties: mystery, children’s, Christian studies/spirituality.
Fahrenheit 451 Books (1980s) – Linda Stackhouse, proprietor. NE corner Homer and Pender. Specialties: Literature, Sci-Fi.
CVA.790-1856 – Fahrenheit 451. Cropped.
Evelyn’s Book Shelf (1950s-1970s) – 3075 W. Broadway. This was the self-proclaimed “largest bookshop in Kitsilano“ during its time. That claim was probably quite exaggerated. See comment below from Gordon Watson. I have had Gordon’s general impressions confirmed (privately) by someone else.
A. H. Falstaff Books (1970s) – Co-owned by WilliamHoffer and Van Andruss. 4529 W. 10th Ave. The shop opened in 1972 and closed after a year.
The Fiction Co. (1990s) – Gordon McRae, proprietor. 425 Abbott. Generalist shop.
Fraser Book Bin (1940s-1970s) – TedFraser, proprietor. 6184 Fraser; also at 1247 Granville. The 1247 Granville location first became Fraser’s in 1946. In 1963, Fraser and his manager were charged with “possession of obscene material for the purpose of publication, distribution or circulation.” Fraser appealed all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada, but was ultimately convicted and fined $3,400. Skip Mabee took over the 1247 Granville site in 1988 and changed the name from A-Aabaca Book Bin (the interim name of the shop between Fraser’s and Mabee’s proprietorships) to the ABC Book & Comic Emporium.
CVA – 1095-00979: 1247 Granville Street. 1974.
Fraser Book Bin (No. 2) (1990s) – Brian Wright & Gerri Ironsides, proprietors. 4750 Main. By 1996, the name of the shop had changed to Fraser Books.
Funston’s Christian Book Centre (1970s-2000s) – William T. Funston, founder (died 1992); Dave Powell was the manager of the Cambie outlet. 8146 Cambie Street. Their stock was divided about equally between new and used Christian literature.
Margaret Gabriel, Bookseller (1990s) – 3036 W. Broadway. Gabriel ‘packed it in’ with a closing out sale in 1995. Specialties: religions of the world, children’s, and 12-step books.
Hermit Books (1990s-2000s) – Sharon & Eileen Hansen, proprietors. 2509 W. Broadway. Specialties: poetry, eastern and western religion/philosophy, fine arts, women’s studies.
Hoffer, here, in his Granville Street shop. From Harrison & Dobson’s First Vancouver Catalogue. 1978. Photo credit: Chris Bickford/Jurgen Vogt.
William Hoffer Books (1960s-1990s) – Hoffer (1944-1997) had his first bookshop on Water Street in Gastown in 1969 while he was an SFU student (Province 25 Oct 1969). Hoffer had a shop at 3293 Dunbar, briefly, in the early ’70s. In the mid-1970s, he opened a shop with Van Andruss called Falstaff Books, at 4529 W. 10th Ave. His fourth location was on the second floor (#104) of 570 Granville (in retail space directly above The Love Shop). His final bookselling location was at 58/60 Powell St. Hoffer had a reputation as a ‘difficult’ person. But he could be charming and generous as well. He left Vancouver and his book selling business for Russia. He married Marsha there (his first wife was Pat; they parted company in the early 1970s). Hoffer died on Vancouver Island from lung cancer. There is an amusing Hoffer quote that pertains to his Dunbar shop: “It was an unnerving experience, trying to operate a bookshop in a largely working class neighbourhood in a short terrace of shops. Across the street there was a small cafe, the owner of which had a son who had been aboard an alien space craft. Very few people came into the shop, but occasionally I would notice faces pressed like snails’ feet against the plate glass windows.” (From Hoffer’s book catalogue, STIGMA #80).
Below are the full text of three of Hoffer’s less readily available articles written in the mid-1980s for the Alcuin Society in their Amphoras 56, 58, and 59 and titled “Letter from a Bookseller” in which he reflects upon his early years in bookselling. Many thanks are due to Richard Hopkins for supplying these seemingly scarce issues of Amphora:
CVA 790-2167. William Hoffer’s shop on Powell Street.
Hummingbird Books (1970s) – Proprietor: Albert Eddy (the same person who founded AardvarkBooks ca1971). 337 W. Pender (second floor) starting in ca1978.
Kirkwood’s Fine Used Books (1990s-2000s) – Carol Kirkwood, proprietor. Was established in Marpole in about 1994 at 8662 Granville. By 2000, it became Characters Fine Books and Coffee Bar and moved to the west side of Granville at 8419 Granville.. The shop ultimately was the victim of high rent charged by the landlord and they called it quits ca2008. I lived in Marpole when Carol Kirkwood started Kirkwood’s Books and I faithfully returned to the neighbourhood shop after it became Characters (and we’d moved to Burnaby).
Kitsilano Bookstore (1970s) – Proprietor unknown. 2887 and 3075 West Broadway. Their tag line was “Books for all of the family.”
CVA 800-0182 – 2800 Block of West Broadway. 1978. Alan J. Ingram photo. The bookstore on the north side of the street appears to be Kitsilano Books.
Stephen C. Lunsford – 341 W. Pender. #711 – 207 W. Hastings. Specialties: Western Canadiana/Americana.
McIntyre. Bill Cunningham photo
Stephen McIntyreBooks (1940s-1980s) – Was involved in the used/antiquarian book trade from the 1930s until his death from lung cancer in 1984. Initially, he was a book scout, but by the 1940s, he was a book dealer. The first of his shops of which I am aware was at 340-B Cambie; where the 340 Pub is today. In the 1970s, he was at 833 Davie. Later, he moved to a shop at 319 W. Pender. He traded in the occult and science fiction, but was best known as a generalist.
Makara Books (1990s) – Barbara Draskoy, proprietor (later Barbara Stefan). 2868 W. 4th. Specialties: metaphysical and oriental philosophy. It closed in 1992.
CVA 786-7.17 – The Elcho Apt and commercial space showing the building from an oblique angle that shows a vacant space which used to be a book business. Thanks to Gordon Watson (in comments at VAIW’s ‘The Elcho’ post, December 2023), we can now identify this space as having been let to Stephen McIntyre in the 1970s. 1978.
William Matthews, Bookseller (1980s) – His shop was at 434 W. Pender in the early ’80s, presumably before Lionel Bell took over the space in 1983. Bill was Terry Rutherford‘s business partner in the 1970s. He has been on Vancouver Island for several years. He recently bought The Haunted Bookshop in Sidney.
Mei Lei Holdings (1970s) – 33 W. Broadway. Used and new (English language) paperbacks.
Brendan M. Moss, Esq. (1980s-2000s) – Moss was formerly an auctioneer. He had an antique map and print shop. In 1986, his shop was at 402 W. Pender (#804). In the late 1980s, the shop was at 101 W. Pender. By 1990, the shop had moved to a basement unit at 332 Water Street (formerly, Cloth Hall; today known better as (Le Magasin). I am not certain when his Water Street shop closed, but was probably ca2005.
Murray’s Books (1950s-1980s) – Murray Hughson, proprietor. 856 Granville (1954-1974). Hughson died in 1971. The shop carried on for about a decade after his death under the management of Peter C. Lawrence. The shop moved to 942 Granville in 1974 due to high rent. It closed in late 1980.
The Mystery Merchant Bookstore (1990s) – Proprietor: Christa Pritchard. 1952 W. 4th Ave. Specialties: Mystery, true crime, detective, espionage fiction (used and new).
Narnia Books (1990s) – David & Joanne Anderson. 5585 Dunbar. A small generalist shop with a specialty in Christian literature. I recall my wife finding a couple of unusual John Buchan-related items for me at Narnia.
Norris Books (1980s) – T. I. B. Norris. 420 W. Pender; later, Norris apparently moved to W. 4th Ave. at Alma. General Stock.
Octopus Books (1970s-1980s) – P. R. Brown (“Brownie) and Juils Comeault, proprietors. The two proprietors bought Octopus Books on the 2200 block of West 4th from Bill Fletcher in 1977. 2705 W. 4th Ave. Specialties: literature, journals. Comeault died in 1983 and shortly after that, Brownie sold West to Renee Rodin and poet Billy Little. The new owners changed the name of the shop (at the same address as West was at) to R&B Books.
Octopus Books East (1980s-1990s) – P. R. Brown (“Brownie) and Juils Comeault, proprietors. Brownie and Comeault bought this second store in 1980. Both East and West stores were popular literary and social centres. Comeault died in 1983 and Brownie decided to focus on Octopus East. It traded in used and new books and magazines and was a regular site of readings and workshops. Finally, after 17 years of running East, 11 years on her own, Brownie closed the shop in 1994. 1146 Commercial Drive. Regular poetry readings were held at Octopus Books. CVA has an hour-plus-long recording of one such reading in August 1987 at East; it is good way to get a flavor of the place.
Proprioception Books (1980s-1990s) – Ralph Maud started the store in the early 1980s (1956 W. Broadway) as a sort of replica of the library of poet, Charles Olson. Lisa Robertson (one of the poets featured on a CVA recording of a 1987 Octopus East bookshop poetry reading) bought the shop in 1988 and moved it to 432 Homer (1993). She closed the store in 1994 after the rent at her Homer location tripled in two years (this is a not-uncommon but disturbing theme among used bookshops and among small businesses generally in Vancouver). The term “proprioception” was a favourite of avant-garde poet, Charles Olsen, thus the name of the shop.
Pulpfiction Books – Kitsilano (ca2002-2023). Chris Brayshaw, proprietor. 2754 West Broadway. Closed the Kits location but kept other two (Main Street and Commercial Dr).
R&B Books; later R2B2 Books Books (1980s; 1990s) – Renee Rodin (and, for a year, with Billy Little), proprietor. Rodin and Little bought the former Octopus West store at 2250 W. 4th Ave. in 1985 and named it R&B Books. There was a bad fire at R&B at around Christmas of that year; the building was destroyed. The shop moved to a small space at 2742 W. 4th Ave. and changed the shop’s name to R2B2 Books Books to convey that it was R&B Books, ’round two’. Little left the store within the year and Rodin carried on until 1994. She sold the shop to Denise and Trent Highnell who renamed it Black Sheep Books. R2B2’s specialties: Art, poetry, literature. (See: https://bcbooklook.com/2008/03/13/bookselling-remembering-r2b2-a-na-f-s-story/)
Rostan’s Books (1970s) – 1029 Commercial Dr. General stock.
Rutherford. Rick Loughran photo.
Terry Rutherford (1990s) – She had her first Vancouver shop with Bill Matthews at the former location of Falstaff Books: 4529 W. 10th. This shop specialized in science fiction. Later, Rutherford worked at Star Treader Books. She later opened a mystery/detective shop at 432 Homer. She then moved to 415 W. Pender before leaving Vancouver for Port Moody where she took on a book and paper restoration business. She later moved to Eastern Canada where she continued her restoration business. Rutherford has recently moved back to B.C.
Shows Richard Pender Books for the brief period (1974) when it was located next door to the Niagra Hotel (today, the Ramada) at 445 W. Pender. Today, Richard Pender is part of MacLeod’s shop which also includes the space in this image where the Luggage shop was. CVA 778-270.
Secondo Music Store (1990s) – Chris Held, proprietor. 2744 W. 4th Ave. Used and out-of-print classical music and books on music.
Star Treader Books (1970s-1980s) – Was located in the mid-1970s at 4325 W. 10th. It was gone from there by ca1982, moving to 434 W. Pender. Its second location was taken over in ’83 by the shop run by Lionel Bell. Specialties: fantasy/science fiction.
Sunset Book Exchange (1970s) – One shop at 1795 Robson. Another at 1993 E. 41st Ave. Used paperbacks.
Terminal City Books (1990s) – JudyFraser, proprietor. 231 Main. Specialties: science, trades and mechanical books.
Charles H. Tupper (1980s) – 2868 West 4th Ave. Specialties: Fine arts, Canadiana, history, travel. This seems to have lasted from about 1987-1990.
We Call With Cash (1950s-1970s) – Proprietor unknown. The shop first appeared in 1955 Vancouver directory and continued at least until 1977. 3621 W. 4th Ave.
West Coast Books (1980s) – George Carroll, proprietor. Carroll crossed Burrard Inlet to open WCB and later Carillon Books in Vancouver. He had owned and operated Pacific Books in North Vancouver. WCB was at 1130 Granville, when it first opened in September 1980. Gordon Watson, a WCB employee remarks that “In order to start with a good selection, George had bought a large stock of books from the renowned Peter Howard of Serendipity Books in Berkeley, CA…and many of them were snapped up [on the opening] night” — not least by Bill Hoffer, at the dealer-only, by-invitation affair. “The best stock we would ever have was on that opening night.” Locating WCB at 1130 Granville was ill-advised; it was (and is) a rough neighbourhood. By early 1983, WCB moved to 3209 W. Broadway until it finally folded ca1986. A generalist shop.
Joyce Williams (originally Bishop-Williams with Lois Bishop as JW’s partner) Antique Prints and Maps (1980s-2000s) – From 1984 and into the 1990s Williams had her shop at 346 W. Pender. Her shop later moved to Yaletown for a number of years before closing.
Y’s Books (2010s-2020) – Pam Townsend and David Gagne, proprietors. 4307 Main Street. Y’s opened 2013 on Main at 27th and seems to have succumbed to COVID in Spring 2020, closing its Vancouver space “indefinitely”. The shop was small, but it appears not to have had any specialties; it was a general shop. Shop closed February, 2020.
Yoga Vedanta Metaphsyical Bookstore (1960s-1970s) – Ursula Sylvia Hellmann (founder)and (later) William Balderstone, proprietors. The shop was apparently initially on Robson (opening sometime after 1957) and moved later to Georgia just east of Granville. Balderstone apparently did psychic readings on CFUN radio. Not sure what year it closed.
Zona Arq (or Arc) (1980s) – Proprietor unknown. Was located at Broadway & Alma. It lasted for 1-2 years in the 1980s.
Notes
*Wilkinson’s Automobilia (specializing in automotive-related books, magazines and shop manuals) has closed their Main St. warehouse, recently, given the COVID-19 pandemic. They have an online presence, however: https://www.eautomobilia.com/.
**Principal sources for the information in this post are various editions of Guide to the Secondhand & Antiquarian Bookstores of Greater Vancouver, The Province, Vancouver Sun, Vancouver News-Herald, and of course the City of Vancouver Archives photo database. I am appreciative of details provided by Kim Koch, Rod Clarke, Neil Whaley, Jason Vanderhill, Catriona Strang, Renee Rodin, Don Stewart, Kevin Dale McKeown, Angus McIntyre, Erwin Wodarczak, Peter Findlay, Joscelyn Barnard, Doug Sarti, Gary Sim, Bill Reimer, William V. Lee, Gordon Watson, and Don Young (who kindly gave me access to his stash of 1980s editions of the Guide to Secondhand and Antiquarian Bookstores as well as numerous pertinent newspaper clippings).
Hotel Vancouver (#2) Corona Cigar Box (inside), H. E. Lazarus, Proprietor. Note: Hotel Vancouver is misspelled here; it is spelled correctly on the other side of the lid. The gold-colored emblem seems to be a monogram of H. E. Lazarus. Photo courtesy Tom Carter, the owner of the box.
Hyman Edward Lazarus (1872-1961) came to Canada from London, England when he was about 30, arriving in Vancouver in about 1902. When he got here, he found work with a tobacco vendor named Solomon Blackson at 506 Granville. Lazarus remained with Blackson until 1909, when he started as the proprietor of the Hotel Vancouver Cigar Stand.
Lazarus married Miriam Robinson (d.1944) in 1904; he was 32 and she was 25. Together they had a family of a boy (Bernard Horace) and two girls (Louise and Minnie-Ray Nina). Miriam was very active in community organizations (indeed, I’d venture to say that her name more frequently appeared in local newspapers than did Hyman’s). She was at one time the president of the Alexandra Orphanage. She was a member of the ladies auxiliary that was responsible for erecting the first Crippled Children’s Hospital in the city in 1933 (at Manitoba and 59th; across the street from where Sexsmith Community Pre-School is today), and was active in the work of the Red Cross during WW1. Bernard became a manager at Miller and Coe, the tableware retailer on West Hastings Street (The Province, 7 Oct 1944). Minnie worked as a clerk for the City; Louise was a stenographer.
Lazarus’s Cigar Stand was on the NE corner of the ground floor of the old hotel, as shown below.
CVA 362-19 – Ground floor plan, Hotel Vancouver (#2) at Granville & Georgia Streets, 1916.
In the Victoria Daily Times in 1922, I found a piece that indicated that Lazarus was, in that year at least, also vending tobacco and newspapers at The Empress Hotel. Presumably, he had employees either in Vancouver or Victoria (or both) whom he trusted to carry on the business when he was away (Victoria Daily Times Feb 7 1922). According to his obituary, he also operated cigar/news stands in the Banff Springs Hotel and at the Lake Louise Hotel (Vancouver Sun 19 Jan 1961). However, I was unable to find any supporting evidence of this claim. (It may be a mistake to put too much faith in the ‘facts’ in H. E. Lazarus’s obituary in the Sun. His wife was shown, incorrectly, as “Marion Robertson” instead of, correctly, as “Miriam Robinson”!)
At his Hotel Vancouver Stand, Lazarus sold cigars and other tobacco products, as well as newspapers and magazines and tickets to local performances being held at such locations at Vancouver theatres. He also sold postcards, at least some of which were published by him of B.C. scenes, including this one of the city of Vancouver ca 1910 taken by photographers Bullen & Lamb.
Vancouver Daily World 20 May 1922.
The tobacco business seems to have been kind to Lazarus. In 1922, he purchased a Lexington automobile. I had initially assumed that this must have been a very high-end car (as I hadn’t heard of the maker before). But upon consulting classic car expert, Peter Findlay, I learned differently:
The Lexington Motor Company in Indiana was a subsidiary of the United States Automotive Corporation. It was what we call an “assembled car”, meaning that the company purchased all the components from other manufacturers and assembled them all into a car on their premises.
For 1922, Lexington cut prices in an effort to boost sales. It didn’t work, as the company was bought by the Auburn Automobile Company in 1926. The 1922 price for Lazarus’s Lexington was $1745 at the factory, probably around $2000 in Vancouver. This puts it somewhere in the middle. The Lexington and others like it would be considered a nice family car. Many of them would not survive for 10 more years. It might be like buying a basic Chev or Buick sedan these days.
Peter Findlay, email sent May 30, 2022
Even if the Lexington wasn’t a high-end vehicle, Lazarus certainly seemed to be doing well enough at his Cigar Stand(s) that he could afford a $2000 vehicle in the early 1920s. Whether he could afford to keep it into the depression years a decade into his future (or if his Lexington even survived that long), I don’t know.
Lazarus retired from the Hotel Vancouver Cigar Stand in 1928.
His replacement at the Cigar Stand was one Charles William Dixon. He met with a mysterious death just before he began working at Lazarus’s former business. Dixon hailed from Victoria and he disappeared almost without a trace upon arriving in Vancouver in February 1929. Only a coat and hat bearing Dixon’s initials were found on the centre span of the Connaught Bridge (aka Cambie Street Bridge). It was assumed, therefore, that he must have drowned in False Creek. But there was no further sign of Dixon until a decomposing body was found in the Fraser River near Marpole in early April 1929. A distinctive ring worn on the left hand was the means by which Dixon was identified (The Province 7 April 1929).
Very peculiar.
Lazarus’s retirement from the Hotel Cigar Stand wasn’t the conclusion of Lazarus’s career in the tobacco business. He established a tobacco retail shop at 605 West Hastings, after leaving the hotel. This business seemed to fizzle by the early 1930s (with the onset of the Great Depression).
In a 1940 Sun retrospective on the old Hotel Vancouver, H. E. Lazarus was fondly recalled:
For twenty years kindly Hyman E. Lazarus conducted the cigar stand in the old hotel. Lazarus was a great artist, he knew the vagaries of his clientele. Lazarus studied the likes and dislikes of his customers and while the bulk of his trade demanded the quality of the “Corona de Corona,” retailing at four-bits [50 cents each], Lazarus had ever the same kindly smile as he served the lobby lizards a “stinkdoro” for a nickel….Today he lovingly hovers over a real Havana cigar like a tea-taster. Lazarus knows Havana; ’tis a dying art, few like him are left.
Stephen Joseph Thompson (1864-1929) was a fine early Vancouver photographer – arguably the best early B.C. landscape photographer. Eve Lazarus has written a piece about Thompson’s life and career here. This post is less about Thompson than it is about his family’s home for several years at 1275 Haro Street (Mr Thompson was married and they had two boys and two girls).
CVA 635-2 – 1275 Haro St – Residence of S.J. Thompson – Exterior and Garden. 191-. Presumably a photo by S. J. Thompson.
I stumbled across the series of photos of Thompson’s home when browsing through the photos on the City of Vancouver Archives today. It was love at first sight. I would love to have lived in this home!
CVA 635-7 – Residence of S.J. Thompson – 1275 Haro Street – Interior Entryway. 191-. Presumably a photo by S. J. Thompson.
I don’t think I would retain the big horn sheep’s head if I owned this home, but everything else visible in the entryway would suit me fine. The grandfather clock seems to just barely have fitted the ceiling height. Could that be the kitchen on the other side of the curtain?
CVA 635-4 – Residence of S.J. Thompson – 1275 Haro Street – Interior Living Area. 191-. Presumably a photo by S. J. Thompson.
The room shown above appears to be what we’d today call the living room (although in Thompson’s day it was probably called either the drawing room or the parlour). The fireplace is charming with the row of books above it and the (presumably family) portraits and other knick-knacks above the books. There appears to be an extension to the living room to the right and another room just visible beyond it. The room past the drawing room appears to be the formal dining room and it is shown in greater detail in the next photo.
CVA 635-6 – Residence of S.J. Thompson – 1275 Haro Street – “Interior Parlour”, according to CVA, but looks to me like a Dining Room. 191-. Presumably a photo by S. J. Thompson.
The table in this room appears to be expandable and the several chairs seem to match the table, thus why I conclude that it is the dining room. The stained glass in the upper windows is very appealing to me. As are all of the photos on the walls. More of a “confounding” mystery, in friend Jenn Friesen’s language, are what appear to be three doors in the room! There appear to be two doors on the left side of the room (on either side of the sideboard) and one designed for a very short person or a child on the right side! Why all these entryways?! Jenn suggested that the short door may have been a pass-through (assuming that the kitchen is on the other side of that wall or, if the kitchen is on another floor (presumably below) there may be a dumb waiter behind it. Who can say for sure?
CVA 635.5 – Residence of S.J. Thompson – 1275 Haro Street – Back Yard Tennis Court. 191-. Presumably a photo by S. J. Thompson.
The lot on which the home sat was plainly a very large one as it could fit a backyard tennis court. I’m assuming that the woman on the back balcony is Mrs. Thompson.
The Thompsons took up residence at 1275 Haro in 1907 and remained there until 1924. Stephen died in 1929. Prior to the Thompsons buying it, the home was occupied by Fred Buscombe (crockery merchant and later Mayor) and his family from about 1899-1905.
Shortly after the home was sold by the Thompsons, the single occupancy residence was split into 6 rooms and became an apartment block known as the Ellsworth Apartments. As far as I can tell, the home remained more or less intact until the 1960s when it was demolished to make way for the 10-story Logan Villa apartment block. Logan Villa still stands.
An Alternate Version of House Layout (and Likely Much Closer to True!)
The account below comes from Jenn Friesen (a friend of mine, mentioned earlier in this post):
The photo of the entryway is taken from the front door. Through the curtain is the dining room (not the kitchen as you had speculated earlier). To the right is the staircase going up and you can see the light from the second floor small window (almost hidden by foliage on the shot of the front exterior of the house) touching on the stair bannister.
From the drawing room photo, you can see the front door with the curtained window. That changes the orientation of your so-called “kitchen” (through the curtains in the entryway photo) because the light if definitely at the photographer’s back (looks as though he shot with the door open and his camera on the front porch).
Through the entryway curtain/door we can see the sideboard in the dining room! Look closely at the front edge and the item that is sitting on the front right corner and look also at the placement of the throw rugs! Then look at the dining room photo and you see the same configuration of the rugs and just a little peep of that thing on the sideboard and its edge. That is the same sideboard but it is so huge and complicated that it looks very different from the perspectives of the two photos (of the entryway and the dining room).
So, if all of that is true, then the little door is a storage area beneath the stairs!
Crop of CVA Van Sc P38.4 – Looking south toward Pender Street from Hastings Street and Seymour Street 1892. Charles S. Bailey photo. Ontario House is at the SW corner of Pender and Richards. The Homer Street Methodist Church looms in the background (and to the right of it, Sacred Heart Academy).
There were a couple of early Vancouver businesses that were named “Ontario”: a rooming house/hotel and a grocery store.
Ontario House
J. G. Taylor was the proprietor of the Ontario House from 1889 to 1892. It apparently was so named because proprietor Taylor had come to Vancouver from Ontario, specifically from Gravenhurst. Ontario House was a business that operated on temperance principles; meaning, I assume, that there was no liquor sold (or permitted?) on the premises. The rate was $1/day.
By 1892, Taylor was worn out and he sold his business to one Isaac Brown. The only thing notable about Brown’s ownership was that he advertised (with apparent pride) that “no Chinese” were employed by the hostelry. Whether that was a change introduced by Brown or a policy that was established by Taylor and continued by Brown isn’t clear.
In 1894, Ontario House was leased by Mrs. Henry Wise and renamed, grandly, “The Palace Boarding House.” The rooming house seems to have stood at this corner at least until the 1950s — in these later years as Lamona Rooms.
Ontario Grocery
CVA 677-640 – Carrall Street at Hastings Street. 190- P. T. TImms. Ontario Grocery was located in the space where McTaggart & Moscrop Hardware was in this later photo.
Port P134.2 – Mayor William Templeton 1897?
The Ontario Grocery was owned initially by William Templeton and Joseph Northcott (Northcott withdrew from the partnership, apparently, by 1889). It had to be one of the first grocery stores in Vancouver. It was destroyed in the 1886 Great Fire and was speedily re-built with bricks on the site of the first grocery — the NE corner of Carrall and Hastings — and was known as the Templeton Block. Indeed, according to the Vancouver Weekly Herald (cited in Major Matthews’ Early Vancouver, Volume 4, p. 70), it was the second brick building to be erected in the City.1
Like Ontario House, Ontario Grocery was named apparently because Templeton came to Vancouver from Belleville, ON.
Templeton unsuccessfully ran for Mayor of Vancouver in 1890 and in 1891 was successful in becoming an Alderman of the Vancouver City Council. After serving one year as an Alderman, he was elected a member of the Vancouver School Board. He ran for Mayor successfully in 1897.
Templeton died suddenly in his 45th year (in January 1898) of an “apoplectic stroke” just weeks before his first term as Mayor was over and the next election was due. In August 1898, James Foran (a former clerk at the grocery) and N. Frost (the former book-keeper) took over the Ontario Grocery. At some point, Frost withdrew from the partnership and Ontario Grocery was taken over by the Foran Brothers. By 1901, the name of the firm became Foran Bros. Grocery and in the same year they moved the business from the Templeton Block up Carrall a bit and across the street to the Harris Block (309 Carrall).
The Templeton Block still stands. As does the Harris Block (which today also houses the Rainier Hotel).
Notes
1Maurice Guibord has pointed out that at least two buildings claim the honor of being the firstbrick building in the city (the Tremont Building on Carrall just south of Water Street and the Oppenheimer Building on Powell Street where Bryan Adams has his recording studio), so the claim that the new Templeton Block was the second building built with bricks is probably open to question.
CVA 99-1917 – Vaughn Moore group at Lost Lagoon. 1929. Stuart Thomson. I think Vaughn is the gent on the left. The other man appears to me to be Vaughn’s brother.
For those of you who (like me) are not well-versed in advanced crossword clues, the term “Terpsichorean” pertains to dancing. Vaughn Drier Moore (1894-1965) made a career out of providing dancing instruction in the Pacific Northwest from about 1919 until his death in 1965.
Vaughn was born to LeBaron and Thirza Moore in Connell, New Brunswick and came to Vancouver at a relatively young age (about 21), circa 1915. Moore played on a local amateur lacrosse team, the Olympics, from 1913-1915. He was also team captain.
A wedding notice in 1917 mentioned that Moore had been studying at Columbia College — a Methodist school in New Westminster — for a number of years. This would be the first of two marriages for Moore; this time to Lilas May van Houten.
Vaughn and Lilas’s marriage certificate shows Vaughn as being an “advertising agent” at the time of their wedding. But his directory listing in that year indicates he was a law student (if that’s accurate, he didn’t pursue studies in the law for long).
Oddly, I could not find any record that indicated that Moore was involved in WW1.
By 1919, Moore had established the first of his dancing schools, which he called “The Vaughn Moore Studio of Terpsichorean Art”. I’m guessing that he received some negative feedback on the name of his studio and within a year, it became the somewhat more pedestrian-sounding “The Lilas and Vaughn Moore Studio of Graceful Ballroom Dancing” and less than a year later, simply “The Vaughn Moore School of Dancing”. The studio’s first location was above the Colonial Theatre at the SW corner of Granville and Dunsmuir (603 Granville). It had branch studios, as early as 1920, in the Fairview and Grandview districts and a studio in Seattle. In the early 1920s, the downtown studio was moved from the Colonial Theatre building to a space on the second floor across the street from David Spencer’s store at 518 W. Hastings.
CVA 447-399 – Colonial Theatre. 1972. Walter Edwin Frost. This image was made just before the Colonial Building (aka the Kinemacolor Building) was demolished to make way for Pacific Centre Mall.
In 1923, Vaughn and Lilas were awarded by Mr. and Mrs. Rudolph Valentino the Valentino Dancing Trophy (a loving cup), upon being judged to be Vancouver’s best ballroom dancers (Sun. 3 June 1923).
The Moores taught classical ballroom dance and also tap dance and the latest dance moves. In 1928, for example, they taught the Lindbergh Waltz (aka, the Lindy Hop) and the Varsity Drag.
Moore was divorced from Lilas Moore in 1929. Interestingly, Lilas married another dancer in 1943, one Arthur G. Lewis. In 1931, Moore married Lilian Bonython. He was also divorced from Lilian at some point.
Moore fell down the stairs in his apartment at 1374 W. Broadway in September 1965, fracturing his skull. He was 71. His death was found by Coroner Glen McDonald (whose autobiography, How Come I’m Dead?, I highly recommend) to be a suicide. The Vaughn Moore Dance Studio continued to operate until February 1966.
CVA 99-4186 – Vaughn Moore Tap Review at Capital Theatre. 1932. Stuart Thomson.
CVA 2018-020.10436 – The Gai Paree Supper Club, NW corner at Kingsway and Sperling .
The Gai Paree Supper Club was established in 1947 by the Morin family on Kingsway at Sperling. Anne Marie and R. P. (Rene Pierre) Morin were born in France, later moving to the Channel Islands in the U.K. where they worked as farm laborers, met and ultimately married in 1903. They migrated to Bonnyville, AB — a French-Canadian community NE of Edmonton — in 1912. “Dad” Morin served with the Canadian Forces overseas and, upon returning to Canada, worked for the CNR until taking his pension in 1943. Meanwhile, Mom was busily operating her own community grocery and buying three houses which she rented, all the while raising a family of four (Sun 12 Jun 1954).
Mom (Anne Marie) Morin. Sun 24 Oct 1953.
In 1942, Mom left Bonnyville with her ailing daughter, Adele, and settled on Sperling Avenue in Burnaby. (Adele died in 1945 at age 38 of Addison’s Disease). Mom had a real entrepreneurial flare, as she soon had her eye on the corner of Kingsway and Sperling and had an idea for establishing a food service business there. At that time, her eldest boy, Rene, was managing the Spokane Spartans’ hockey team. And another son, Rudy, had his own band in the Kootneys, the Rossland Ramblers (Sun 12 Jun 1954). The family was called together in Burnaby.
Mom sent Rudy and another son, Severin, out to learn the food business. They moonlit with Nat Bailey’s White Spot restaurants for awhile. Everyone pitched in with the construction of the Gai Paree until it was completed in November 1947.
The Gai Paree Supper Club was born! Every Friday and Saturday night, from 10 ’til 2 a.m., there was dancing. All other nights, the Paree was available to be booked for corporate get-togethers, wedding receptions, birthdays or any other catering occasion. And on Saturday nights, the Gai Paree Party Bus brought folks from Vancouver into the Burnaby location and took Paree-ers back to Vancouver at 2 a.m. There was also a nightly (except Monday) drive-in service provided at the Paree until 1 a.m.
There was a band, of course. Early on, music was supplied by Arne Moller and his Band. Later on, it was supplied by Pierre and His Gai Paree Orchestra. “Pierre” was, in fact, Rudy. He doubled as “Pierre the Arteest” who drew cartoons of guests on their souvenir photos. Photos were taken, in 1953, by Bart Van Den Beld.
Rene, Rudy and Severin Morin (Ray Allan photo for the Sun). Sun 12 June 1954.
In 1976, the Gai Paree became Severin’s, named after the manager of both establishments: Severin Morin. There was a dining room, and adjacent to it a room called “That’s Entertainment”which featured live entertainment, no cover charge, and no reservations. And there was a club upstairs that paid tribute to local radio host, Jack Cullen, called Jack’s. Severin’s was open every night from 5 p.m. (Province 5 Aug 1976).
Severin’s quietly disappeared in 1985 and, in its place, Diego’s was established. But the Morin family had nothing to do with Diego’s. Today, there is a condominium residential tower where The Gai Paree/Severin’s once were.
The eldest son, Rene, died suddenly in 1954 at age 49. The Morin family contributed to the establishment of the Rene Memorial Playground in 1956 just behind the Gai Paree at Sperling and Balmoral; it is still there. Mom passed in 1956; Dad in 1963; and Severin in 2014.
The Rene Memorial Playground – in memory of Rene Morin – at Sperling and Balmoral. Google Street View 2022.
Many thanks are due to Maurice Guibord for his assistance with details pertaining to the Morins and the Gai Paree.
Findlater and the Elgar Choir posing on the steps of St. Andrew’s-Wesley United Church (First Baptist Church tower in the background). The Choir consisted mainly of teenaged girls, but a few boys whose voices hadn’t yet changed were also members. n.d. BC Archives.
Charles E. Findlater (1893-1975) founded and led the Elgar Junior Choir from 1924 until shortly before his death.¹ Until Findlater received permission from English composer Sir Edward Elgar’s daughter in 1932 (there is some disagreement as to the year; in some places, 1935 is cited) to use “Elgar” to identify the choir, it was known as the “Wesley Methodist Sunday School Choir” which later evolved to the “St. Andrew’s-Wesley United Church Junior Choir”.² According to the Canadian Encylopedia, the repertoire of the choir was drawn principally from Elgar and his British contemporaries.
The choir’s name change to Elgar, according to “The Story of the Elgar Choir”, recounted in the programme for the Choir’s 3rd Canadian Tour (1940), came about mainly due to the growth of the group in both numbers and reputation:
The Choir had steadily grown, until it became usual for a season’s enrolment to far exceed one hundred. Although the membership changed a little each year, there was always a large number of girls who had received several years’ training and were experienced junior choristers. It was apparent that from these trained singers a special demonstration group could be formed, which under good auspices, could visit other parts of the Province and carry on the work which had been so successfully begun by the Sunday School Choir. The experiment was decided upon and in 1932 the new organization was formed and named the Elgar Junior Choir, after the eminent British Composer and Master of the King’s Music, Sir Edward Elgar.³
The Choir began as a competitor in provincial and more distant music festivals. But later, the choir was considered to be of such high calibre, that they no longer engaged in competitions. They toured (at the choristers’ own expense) as a goodwill gesture and as a fund raiser during WWII for the Red Cross and other charitable organizations. I will summarize some of the Choir’s travels below (not all; most texts agree that the Choir made 13 overseas trips to some 27 countries):
1934: To Chicago World’s Fair and cities in Eastern Canada (later referred to, collectively – in some texts – as the First Canadian Tour);
1936: Tour to U.K. and Norway (Highlights: World’s Sunday School Convention at Oslo; Bournemouth Musical Festival, and the National Welsh Eisteddfod at Fishguard, Wales) – later called the First British Tour.
Early 1940s: Plans for a second British tour were cancelled due to wartime hostilities; instead, the Second Canadian Tour (1941) and the Third Canadian Tour (1942) were arranged. The object of both tours was principally to fundraise for war charities.
1949: Second British Tour;
1950: A local tour (of B.C. and parts of Washington state);
1954/55: Tour of Europe and Britain, including appearances in: Pairs, Cologne, Dusseldorf, Holland, Belgium, and various cities in Britain;
1960: First USSR tour (“the first Canadian cultural group” to visit there);
1963: A Round-the-World tour, with appearances in the following places: Switzerland, East Berlin, Moscow, Leningrad, Kiev, Rome, Vienna, Paris, West Berlin, and “the British Isles”. Following this, C. E. Findlater apparently decided, briefly, to “retire his baton”;
1971: CEF evidently picked up his baton again to lead another overseas tour by the Choir (Europe and Asia);
1974: Choir’s 50th Anniversary Reunion was held at St. Andrew’s-Wesley United Church. It was estimated at the time that over 6,000 choristers (boys and girls) had been Choir members during its lifetime. (A 14th overseas trip had been planned for summer of 1974, but that seems not to have happened, presumably due to Findlater’s worsening health.) I suspect that most of the photographs in this post that are courtesy of BC Archives were originally supplied from this reunion.
Elgar Choir touring U.K. They appear to be posed in front of Canada House in London, England. n.d. BC Archives.
Findlater was born and educated in England, coming to Canada in 1914 and settling in Vancouver in 1918. He did much of the recruitment for the Elgar Choir through his “Elgar
Vancouver Sun. 4 Oct 1963, p.3. Photograph in honour of CEF’s “retirement”. A bit premature! Crop of a Brian Kent photo. (The article from which this was taken was generously provided by former Elgar Choir member, Nancy Nelson (nee Haines).
School of Music”, which was established ca1935 and continued to thrive until his death. The school consisted of space in the Fairfield Building (no longer extant; at the NW corner of Granville and Pender).
Findlater was Music Superintendent of Vancouver Schools from 1928-31. He taught piano, music theory, and directed the choirs at Crofton House School. Beginning in 1941, he was Director of the choir at Vancouver College (a Roman Catholic school established by the Christian Brothers; it was/is located at Cartier and 39th Ave.). He was choir director at Knox United Church and at St. Mary’s Anglican Church (both in Kerrisdale) at different periods. And he served as a music adjudicator at music festivals across Canada.
Mrs. (Amy) Findlater, the choir director’s wife, was chaperone and ‘mother’ to the Choir. She accompanied her husband and the choir on every tour they made (she died in 1973, just two years before CEF’s passing).
Nancy Nelson (nee Haines), a member of the Choir (ca1944-54), now 81°, has a couple of anecdotes about touring with the Choir, in which the Findlaters figure prominently. Nancy’s first recollection is of the ‘special’ train car arranged to carry the the Choir across Canada:
My recollection is that Mr. Findlater told us that the Choir had a special train car from an arrangement with either CPR or CNR (probably one of their older cars that had been taken out of regular service) which was renovated to the Findlaters’ specifications. The forward part of the car included a lavatory, a space that Mrs. F had fixed up as a kitchen (with a fridge and hot plate) and their sleeping quarters. We were not permitted to go into their end of the car. Mrs. F handled the money and she also had a list of staples – provided by our parents – so she could make sure we ate properly.
We would pull down the upper bunks and arrange the lower bunks for our sleeping arrangements and then, somehow, put them out of the way during the day when we sat facing each other over tables for travel and eating. It was ingenious to have that ‘special’ car, with it only having to be shoved in a corner of the rail yards when we were on tour and stored between tours. There were no porters, conductors or other rail personnel on our car and no dining car was required of the train company. We were completely autonomous, except for being towed around. The special car was probably Mrs. F’s brain child. She was quite a lady, and a force to be reckoned with!
We certainly didn’t travel First Class or even Business Class, by any stretch of the imagination. It was bare bones, going and coming. But for those young singers who worked so hard studying, then auditioning, and then spent months practicing to get to go on tour with the Elgar Choir, it didn’t matter a fig!
Nancy’s other vivid memory is of preparation, near the end of the train trip, for intercontinental travel by ocean liner:
Mrs. F was a law unto herself. She didn’t want any of the choristers to get sea sick. So, 2 or 3 days before our train car arrived at Montreal, she hauled out a huge metal container and stirred up what we called ‘the witch’s brew’. I can’t tell you what it was made of, but it was pink! It wasn’t just a laxative…it was a purgative! We lined up and each of us had to drink our dose in front of her! If you barfed it up, she made you drink another. It was bitterly terrible!
There was one lavatory for the 18+ choristers and a pianist. We were running literally all night and most of the next day! Unfortunately, someone forgot to check the cupboard on the rail car before we left Vancouver to ensure we had sufficient toilet paper. So, we had to line up (again) to receive from Mrs. F our individual allotment of four squares of TP. The squares came with instructions, delivered by Mrs. F with a straight face, that we were to fold each square and use it carefully! Oh, my. It was a wild trip into Quebec!
Mrs F’s witch’s brew sure paid off, though. While some passengers were stuck in their shipboard cabins during rough weather, we Elgar choristers were all practicing our hearts out! The Findlaters were hardened and savvy travellers. They knew that the best prevention for sea sickness is to clean out the gut!
The signature song for the 1954 international tour (the one Nancy was on) was The Happy Wanderer. “We did it at the end of every performance, and we sang it again for all the kind people who came to the dock in Liverpool to see us off as Cunard’s Samaria slowly pulled away to begin our return trip to Canada. It was quite a memorable moment for everyone, I think.”
I love to go a-wandering Along the mountain track And as I go, I love to sing My knapsack on my back
Music: Frank Weir. Music: Friedrich W. Moller. Lyrics: Antonia Ridge.
_____
Notes
¹In a 1970 ad, I noticed that the Elgar Choir had changed their name to the “Eldigar Singers (formerly the Elgar Choir)”. Coast News, June 10, 1970, p. 8. What prompted this apparently very brief name change isn’t clear to me. In any event, the use of the name seems never to recur.
Note also that there were several other “Elgar” choirs based in other Canadian cities in the first few decades of the 20th century: in Winnipeg, Montreal, Brockville, Sudbury, and perhaps elsewhere. None of these seems to have been anywhere near as long-lasting nor as renowned as the Vancouver choir, however.
²Wesley Methodist in the 1930s merged with St Andrew’s Presbyterian to become St. Andrew’s-Wesley United Church. They also moved to a different church structure. When it was a Methodist only congregation they made their home at Burrard and Robson. When it became St. Andrew’s-Wesley, they moved to Burrard and Nelson.
ºSadly, Nancy Nelson (nee Haines) passed away in late 2021. I miss our regular correspondence. I never had an opportunity to meet her face-to-face. I’m greatly indebted to Nancy for her recollections in this post of her Elgar Choir experiences.
A very early (if not the first) Vancouver water fountain was situated at the corner which, from the 1930s, was known as Pioneer Place but is better known, today, as Pigeon Park. This piece of real estate was useless for much of anything, and so the CPR (which owned it), gave it to the City (with typical CPR ‘generosity’).
I have been instructed [said CPR Land Commissioner, J. M. Browning] by the trustees of the Vancouver townsite to offer to the city, free of charge, that triangular piece of ground at the intersection of Hastings and Carrall Streets, measuring 17 ft. 6 in. x 16 ft. 1 in. x 11 ft. 8 in., upon which to erect a public drinking fountain.
Daily World, 2 April 1889
For a very early drawing of the park, which shows a drinking fountain, see below. I cannot see any sign of a fountain in mid-century city archives photos of the site, however there seems to be a fountain there today.
MAP 780 – Early map showing Pioneer Place, 1895.
New Slaking Stations
In 1904, it was reported in the local press that a few new drinking fountains (constructed of concrete and faced with portland cement) would be installed in the city that year (Province, 17 June 1904):
At the ‘triangle’ on the corner of Georgia at Pender streets. There is still a ‘triangle’ there today, but it is populated primarily by flagpoles. Few pedestrians walk past this corner these days, so it isn’t surprising that no fountain is extant.
On the road at the base of the reservoir within Stanley Park. This is almost certainly gone today.
The location of a third fountain was still up for grabs in June, 1904, but it was thought likely to be placed at “the depot” (which, I take to be the main B.C.E.R. depot in the city).
By 1912, ten other quaffing sites had been chosen by the city. To the best of my knowledge, there are no drinking fountains today at any of these locations:
City Hall (it was located, at that time, on Main Street, just south of what today is Carnegie Centre)
Hastings at the old courthouse (what would ultimately become Victory Square)
Corner of Georgia and Nichol
Fifteenth and Westminster Road (Main Street)
Powell and Victoria
Victoria and Keefer
Commercial and Broadway
Cornwall and Yew
Heather and Broadway
Granville and Davie
Two Types
There were two sorts of drinking fountains which were popular in Vancouver over a large chunk of our history. If you grew up in the 1960s or later, you are likely accustomed to water fountains that conform to a pretty standard form: a unit with a device on it which you press or twist that sends water out the top from which you slurp to take in a mouthful (or, perhaps more typically, less than a mouthful!)
Until the mid-20th-century, things were different.
Memorials
Our forbears, for reasons which I don’t pretend to understand, often considered it fitting, when a major personality died, to create a memorial to him/her that included a public drinking fountain.
Three Vancouver examples of this type of fountain are discussed below.¹
King Ed VII: One is the King Edward VII memorial, which, after it was created by local sculptor, Charles Marega, for the Imperial Order of the Daughters of the Empire (IODE), was located on the south side of Georgia Street in front of the then-new courthouse building. Here is my favourite photo of it:
From Vancouver and Beyond, Thirkell and Scullion. Girls drinking at the King Ed VII Memorial.
What are the two young gals drinking from? Well you may ask! They were tin cups that were attached to the memorial with metal chains. Yes, community cups, quite literally! (I can hear your 21st century, germ-sensitive self reacting to this. I know. Me, too.) Water flowed from the mouth of the lion figure and into the basin over which the girls were drinking.² Today, the Edward VII fountain has been shifted out of its proud place in front of the courthouse/Art Gallery has been moved to the west side of the Art Gallery. It has suffered significantly from vandalism and wear/tear over the years.
Vicky: Another example of a memorial fountain — one which pre-dated Ed VII by a few years — was the Queen Victoria memorial (Victoria died in 1901; Ed, Victoria’s son, died in 1910).
CVA Mon P32.1 – Women in roller skates around the Queen Victoria Memorial Fountain, ca 1940. The girl on far right has hold of one of the metal chains that held one of the bronze cups once upon a time. It was long gone, by the time this image was taken.
This monument has been within Stanley Park from the date it was first established there (in 1906) to the present. Victoria’s memorial was designed by local artist, James Blomfield. The cups (which had disappeared by the time the above 1940s-era image was made, leaving just the metal chains) were made of bronze, rather than tin.
The Maple Tree: This final example of a memorial fountain commemorated not a deceased person but a former tree (and the memories associated with it by Vancouver pioneers). The memorial plaque, which originally resided above the fountain (as shown below) was removed from the fountain pedestal (the fountain was scrapped, probably during a 1970s refit of Gastown) and integrated instead into the ‘Gassy Jack’ monument.
The Maple Tree Fountain bridged the two sorts of drinking fountains in Vancouver: not only was it s memorial, it was also a ‘bubbler’.
CVA 677-167 – Drinking fountain at Powell and Carrall Streets. The Maple Tree monument and Drinking Fountain, 1928. Charles Marega (the gent nearest to the fountain monument) was its creator
Bubblers
Two disadvantages of the memorial sort of fountain were germ issues and the fact that the cups were very prone to vandalism (they were invariably stolen).
Bubblers didn’t have the second problem; but they still had the former issue.
Bubbler drinking fountains (sometimes called – with more than a little wishful thinking – “sanitary” fountains) bubbled the water upward, as most fountains do today. The crucial difference is that public bubblers in the city until about the 1960s didn’t have an on/off valve, so they bubbled water ‘eternally’, and a person could slake his/her thirst by simply bending over the fountain and interrupting the stream with their mouth.
The problem with this design was that birds, dogs, and other critters liked the bubblers, too, and weren’t shy about partaking of its life-giving flow when humans weren’t using the devices.
Province columnist, D. A. McGregor, expanded on this shortcoming of bubblers in this 1948 piece:
Where the diagonal pedestrian traffic way through Victory Square divides across Cambie Street from the Province office, is a bubbling drinking fountain much used by birds and dogs and humans. The sparrows have a rather hard time of it when thirst drives them to the fountain, for they must perch precariously on the edge of the cement basin and take their drink a drop at a time. The pigeons having more bulk, do better.
Some of the dogs show considerable ingenuity at the fountain. One little black spaniel comes quite frequently, always approaches joyously with a run and a jump that lands him square on top of the basin and there he sits and laps and laps. Other little dogs look longingly and pass by. Some have to be held up to the water spout by their owners. The larger dogs stand up much like people, and yesterday a big old fellow embraced the whole fountain with his forepaws while he quenched his thirst for a good five minutes, pausing now and then to take in the scenery.
The humans seem seldom to come by when the birds or dogs are at the fountain. so, they do not know when they drink they drink from the bird bath and from the dogs’ dish. It may be all right at that. Perhaps what the patrons of the fountain do not know doesn’t hurt them, and perhaps Fido’s tongue is antiseptic and the much-licked water spout quite sanitary. It merely occurred to me that the park board and the medical health officer might like to know what is going on, and might be persuaded to place a bird bath and dog trough at the foot of the fountain.
Province 11 May 1948
CVA 180-3647 – Dog drinking from water a bubbler drinking fountain in Hastings Park. A human looks on. 194-
I applaud Mr McGregor for his concern and for making his fellow-residents aware of this public health problem, but it seems to me that his proposed solution would have had little effect as long as bubblers continued to bubble ‘eternally’ with no shut off/on valve.”
Why Did Bubblers Persist in Vancouver So Long?
The public health issues associated with memorial fountains was solved by their other disadvantage: cups were stolen almost as soon as the memorials were erected!
But what about bubblers? Why is it that Vancouver allowed these things to continue until roughly the 1960s — when fountains were by default in the ‘off’ mode?
I was able to suss out at least three possible reasons:
Reason 1: Anti-Alcohol Movement. There were those who maintained that if fountains were readily available, they would serve to discourage folks from entering saloons (Daily World, 2 Oct 1914).
Reason 2: City cheapness. I’m certain that lack of technology for a ‘default off’ bubbler was not a reason. It may have been that this option was more expensive, however. And from what I saw in press reports, the city seemed to always been on the lookout for cheaper models of bubblers, over the years. Oddly, it wasn’t until the late 1950s, when a major drought hit the Vancouver area, that folks seemed to give much consideration to the cost of lost water due to the ‘eternal’ bubblers.
Reason 3: Willful ignorance. The general public didn’t seem to be hugely worked up about the public health issues associated with bubblers (if the few letters to editors can be taken as indicative).
It wasn’t that there wasn’t public health information warning locals away from the dangers of fountains. A New Westminster physician by the name of Dr. Hall was quoted in the Province as early as 1906, remarking on a connection between tuberculosis and public fountains:
The greatest need . . . is for the taking of ordinary precautions against the spread of [tuberculosis]. Some of the very worst centres of infection are the public drinking fountains. Not only tuberculosis, but all manner of diseases are spread from these . . . . If a man wants a drink when he is out, let him go to a saloon — they will give him a drink of water for nothing; but avoid the drinking fountain.
Province, 26 Oct 1906
Well, Dr. Hall has put Reason 1 and 3 in their place; and I suspect that he wouldn’t have much positive to say about Reason 2! What is monetary cost when compared with threats to public health?
Notes
¹Other memorial type drinking fountains included: the Pauline Johnson memorial in Stanley Park (yes, when it was first unveiled, it had a “drinking fountain” component) – Province, 22 May 1922. Also the Joe Fortes memorial was originally, in part, a drinking fountain. (Province, 25 June 1927). The final memorial fountain that I could find being erected in the city was one that was in 1957 dedicated to the memory of Mrs. Sally Birmingham and Mrs. Agnes Lutes. It was sponsored by the Kiwassa Girls Club and was located at the Club headquarters at 600 Vernon Drive.
Associated Foundry at 25th and Nanaimo Street. From: The Days Before Yesterday: A History of Cedar Cottage. Produced by the Students of Gladstone Secondary School, 1968. Note: The prominent ‘cone’ atop the foundry seems to be the one which so dramatically blew off in 1965.
The foundry at 4080 Nanaimo Street, shown above, was Vancouver Pipe and Foundry from ca1913-1919, then Anthes-Tait Foundry (1919-1944) and finally Associated Foundry (1944-69). From 1969 until ca1980, the site was City of Vancouver property. I have been unable to find written confirmation of this, but I’m assuming that the Province bought the land from the City sometime in the early 1980s so that the Nanaimo Street Skytrain Station could be built on the site.
Having a foundry at this location was the source of headaches over the years (both literally and figuratively, I suspect) — for nearby residents and for City Council and its officials. The foundry was the only industrial business in the Cedar Cottage area; most of the neighborhood was/is residences and “mom and pop” shops.
From the 1940s through the 1960s, as Cedar Cottage became more densely populated, there were regular calls for the City to rezone the foundry site from industrial to residential (which the City refused to do) or to buy the foundry land outright (which it ultimately did after decades of complaints). Principal concerns were that the foundry was producing too much smoke and noise pollution, especially after the period around 1950 when Associated Foundry moved to a 24-hour production schedule. (News-Herald 31 Aug 1950). When foundry-related noise complaints reached a fevered pitch, the City referred the issue to the City Engineer’s anti-noise pollution committee. Nothing much seemed to come of such referrals.
Two incidents, however, made the Nanaimo Street foundry too hot a political potato to be ignored. In 1965, there was a “shattering explosion” at the plant that “hurled molten metal and pieces of iron from a melting pot . . . and blew a 10-foot diameter cone off the top of a chimney stack above the pot. One piece of metal, weighing about 25 pounds, landed on the roof of a house 200 yards away” (Sun 23 April 1965). There were no injuries, but it was considered a wonder that there weren’t. The other incident was less explosive. A “blaze broke out in a tank used for painting pipes, and spread to a shipping office and pattern shop” (Province 3 May 1967). Nobody was hurt in the fire, but on top of the explosion two years before, this added weight to rezoning calls, and the City asked its officials to begin quiet negotiations with Associated Foundry.
A week before the fire, the City officials reported back to Council, but Council believed that they couldn’t afford the purchase price negotiated — pending Council’s approval — with Associated Foundry ($250,000). This price included the cost of moving the plant to Associated property in Surrey ($116,000) (Sun 3 May 1967).
Presumably, the city was in a position, post-fire, to negotiate a better price with Associated Foundry. The price the city ultimately paid to Associated in 1969 was $149,000 (Sun 29 October 1969).
The Nanaimo Street Skytrain Station. Google Street View. 2022.
Bo P82 – Union Steamship Company S.S. Cutch’s arrival at Vancouver. ca 1890.
Old Cutch1, as she was affectionately referred to in the press in later years, was built in Hull, England in 1884 as a yacht of the British Raj in India but was sold to Captain Webster, the Manager of Vancouver’s Union Steamships Co. in 1890. Its original specs were:
According to the World‘s account (based on the ship’s log), she departed Bombay on March 23, 1890, reaching Singapore April 5. She left Singapore April 20th and docked at Nagasaki on May 2. She departed Nagasaki the next day for the short trip to Yokohama, arriving there May 6. Her final leg consisted of departure from Japan May 14th, reaching Victoria June 2. The Cutch docked in her new home port of “English Bay” on the evening of June 3rd (in fact, based on the context of the article, she docked in Burrard Inlet, which in early accounts was often misidentified as English Bay) (World, June 3, 1890).
A month later, Cutch was ready to take a trial/shakedown voyage to Nanaimo. Union Steamships issued 70 invitations to prominent Vancouver businessmen to be gratis passengers (World, 7 July, 1890). It was perfect sailing weather and no reported mechanical or other hitches occurred on the trip. She left at 10 a.m. and tied up in Nanaimo at 1 p.m. The businessmen must have squeezed a lot of Nanaimo schmoozing into their brief time in the city, as the Cutch set off for Vancouver again at about 4 p.m. She docked at Vancouver by 7 that evening.
The Cutch would make that journey between Vancouver and Nanaimo many, many more times, as it was soon announced that she would be Union Steamships’ daily passenger ship to the “Black Diamond City”2. It would leave the CPR dock at 2.30 (except Saturdays) and return to Vancouver by 7 a.m. (except Sundays). It would make the round trip 6 days a week (with occasional breaks for excursions to other nearby ports and for maintenance) until late 1897. The ship was known throughout this period as being staunch, reliable, fast, and safe.
In October 1897, the Cutch was taken out of service for a thorough overhaul to prepare her for a quite different sort of regular service: she would be making longish-haul trips between Vancouver and Alaska. Union Steamships spent about $40,000 to install (among other things) two new boilers so that her engines could achieve up to 14 knots, a hurricane deck, and a new deck house. Accommodations on the ship would also be spruced up to better suit passengers who would be spending not hours but days aboard her (World, 4 October 1897)
By May 1898, the Cutch was all ready to go ‘north, to Alaska’ (she would stop in Skagway, Wrangel, Dyea, as well as northern BC ports, such as Atlin). The principal objective of Union Steamships in fitting up the Cutch for northern service was to take advantage of the northern gold rush. As it turned out, the Klondike rush was just about finished by the time the Cutch got into regular northern service. There was a mini-rush in Atlin a bit later, but it too was short-lived. The captain of the Cutch on the northern route was Holmes Newcombe; H. W. Taylor, purser; Mr. Saunders, chief officer; and Mr. Kick, chief engineer (World, 10 May 1898)
SGN 60 – Steamer “Cutch” covered in ice. Feb 1900. E. A. Hegg Photo.
There were no serious incidents with the Cutch in northern waters from 1898-1900. In February 1900, however, there was a dramatic turn when the ship was docked in Skagway. The steamer was literally coated with thick ice. Captain Newcombe brought a photograph of the ice-encrusted Cutch back to her home port of Vancouver as evidence of this.
Six months later, Cutch’s captain and crew may have looked back to the ice-encrustation incident with some nostalgia.
On August 24, 1900, the Cutch foundered on Horseshoe Reef in Stephens Passage, 25 miles south of Juneau. She never completely sank. But the steamer did have a sizable hole in her. The bow was high and dry; the stern seemed to be the part of the ship where the trouble lay, as it was down and filled with water. Passengers and crew all safely reached “the beach”.3 (World, 31 August 1900)
CVA 260-1178 – The foundering of the S.S. Cutch at Horseshoe Reef in Stephens Passage.
Over a month after the foundering of the Cutch, a report came from Union Steamship’s Coquitlam on a northern run, that the Cutch was still lying on Horseshoe Reef, owing to an especially nasty several weeks of weather which had prevented any successful attempt to re-float her (World, 26 September 1900).
Finally, she was raised in early October and towed to “Douglas”4 by tug, where she was put whole again. In 1901, Union Steamships was paid about $30,000 by the insurers. She was then sold to a Captain Clinton of Portland, Oregon. The little steamer would, flying the American flag, ply the Columbia River between Portland and Astoria. It would also have a new name. No longer would it proudly bear the name of Cutch. During its time as an American riverboat, it would be known as the Jessie Banning (World, 2 May 1902).
By 1904, the Jessie Banning was for sold again, this time to the nation of Colombia, and not as a riverboat, this time. She was fitted out with guns, and would be known as the gunboat Bogata. (Province, 4 April 1904).
Thereafter, the history of the former Cutch becomes hazy. It seems improbable, however, that the Bogata made it out of Colombia. It seems more likely that, when she had served her purpose in the eyes of her Columbian masters, she was abandoned in some corner or other of that state.
It was an ignoble passing of a little ship with a proud heritage.
Notes
1Why was she called Cutch? After a region in India, and allegedly, after a Maharajah of that region.
2Nanaimo was known as the Black Diamond City in the Victorian era due to coal which powered the local economy there during that period.
3Just where “the beach” was located was a bit vague in press reports, probably because this was pretty obvious to readers of the day (versus this landlubber researcher). The “beach” had to be on the land on one side or other of Stephens Passage.
4I take it that by the reference to “Douglas” is meant Douglas Island, Alaska, which is near to Juneau. Not Port Douglas (part of Surrey, B.C.), which would have been a far greater distance than a tug would have been able to go.
CVA 660-927 – Kerrisdale Baptist Church en route from Port Coquitlam on a barge on the Fraser River. It looks to me as though it is just across from Eburne/Marpole at the foot of Hudson Street. It would be taken ashore not far from here at the foot of Angus Drive where Marpole’s Fraser River Park (across the Fraser from YVR) is today. May 1921 John Davidson.
As is true of most Baptist churches in the Greater Vancouver area, Kerrisdale Baptist Church had quite humble origins.1 Baptists living in the Kerrisdale neighbourhood met, starting ca1913, at the home of Ralph Daggett at 38th and Dunbar (which seems to me to be outside of the Kerrisdale precinct and more accurately within Dunbar district). Later, they moved to another temporary site at Wilson Road (41st Avenue) and Carnarvon where Kerrsisdale Elementary school is located today.
The church was formally organized in February 1914 with Rev. Joshua T. Marshall as pastor. They continued to meet at the school site during this time. Later that year, the church reported to the denominational HQ that they had a charter membership of 32 souls. Over the next couple of years, two decisions were taken by the congregation. First, they adopted a formal name. Nope, not Kerrisdale Baptist; Calvary Baptist Church! Second, they moved from the school site to a store at the corner of 41st Ave. and Balsam Street.
Around 1917, the congregation purchased a lot at the corner of 37th Ave. and Yew Street. However, by 1920, they had found and bought another lot at the corner of 43rd Ave. and East Boulevard. So the church had a lot, but no building. And so it was with guarded glee that they received news from the Home Mission Board (the local denominational office) that there was a former Baptist building available. And at no cost to the Kerrisdale Baptists.
There was just one wrinkle: It was situated in Port Coquitlam!
The Kerrisdale Baptists were made of pretty stern stuff. The fact that their future building was located in Port Coquitlam was viewed as a challenge, rather than as the insoluble bureaucratic tangle which it would doubtless be today. In charge of planning and carrying out the project was Canadian General Electric Co. manager and Baptist church member, Frank McNeill.2
There were two principal stages to the journey from PoCo; a rivers segment; and a land one. For the rivers leg, the church-on-barge needed to proceed down the Pitt River and the Fraser. Six bridges had to be raised along the way. Finally, just west of Marpole, the barge was beached at the foot of Angus Drive (at that time, Angus Drive was called Angus Ave. and went as far as the Fraser River).
The land leg required that huge rollers be used to carry the structure to its final destination north on Angus and over to East Boulevard — at night. Several BC Electric wires needed to be cut along the way. Meanwhile, a foundation and basement walls of the correct proportions were set at the East Boulevard site. The foundation fitted the structure perfectly.
Before the building was moved to its new site, the name of the church was changed to Kerrisdale Baptist.
CVA 660-920 – Kerrisdale Baptist Church at 5870 East Boulevard. ca1922. John Davidson.3
The Kerrisdale Baptists had a tendency to call ministers who were at the tail end of their ministry careers. This meant that these men were less energetic than one might hope for in a pastor of a new congregation. Joshua Marshall lasted scarcely a year (1914-15); likewise John Pirie (1921-1922). George Reynolds lasted longer (1922-30), but his replacement, Charles Morse didn’t (1931). Merle Mason (1934-37) made it just three years. J. Willard Litch (1937-43) had a respectable pieriod in the pulpit at KBC, but poor health and 50 years of continuous ministry in Baptist churches (including First Baptist) made it advisable for him to resign in 1943. His replacement, Clarence Wright (1943-46) endured in the pastorate for just over three years. And J. Leroy Sloat (1946-51), while he had a longish period in KBC’s pulpit, finished his 50th year of ministry there in 1951 and resigned later that year.
Trinity Baptist Church. Sun 9 July 1955. H. E. Addington photographer.
By the early 1950s, it was apparent that a larger building was needed to accommodate the growing congregation, but no adjacent lots were available. Clark Bentall donated a large property located at the SE corner of Granville and 49th avenue. Sod was turned for the new building in January 1955 and the sanctuary was dedicated on July 10, 1955. Because the church was located outside of Kerrisdale, it would be known as Trinity Baptist Church.
Former Kerrisdale Baptist Church for Sale in 2013. Source: Vancouver Street Blog. January 26, 2013
The old church structure was sold to the Christian Scientists for $50,000. It was sold by the Christian Scientists in 2013 (listed for just under $6 million). On November 8, 2016, an early morning fire destroyed the church building. Today, there is a four-story condominium at this location with retail space at street level (5888 East Boulevard).
Notes
1 I am very grateful for the eagle eyes of my old friend, Bill Reimer, manager of Regent Bookstore, for setting aside the little booklet for me on which much of this post is based: The Past is the Prologue: A History of Trinity Baptist Church Prepared for the Celebration of its Diamond Jubilee, 1914-1974. n.d. [1975]. At first, I thought that the (unnamed) author(s) had been playing a bit fast and loose with another Canadian book title, the memoirs of Vincent Massey, What’s Past is Prologue. But I have since learned that ‘past is prologue’ references are common in historical literature!
2In January 1950, Frank McNeill managed to steer his car into a ditch (it must have had some unspecified issue). He didn’t consider it safe (for others) to leave his automobile there, so he walked until he found a service station. He asked the service station attendant to move his car to a safer location and then McNeill collapsed. He died before he reached hospital (Province 20 Jan 1950).
CVA 660-686 – John and Annie Davidson. 1903-08
3John Davidson, the photographer of the early views of Kerrisdale Baptist shown in this post, was the BC Provincial Botanist and was a professor at UBC. Known as “Botany John”, he was the founder of the Vancouver Natural History Society and was a charter member with his wife, Annie, of Kerrisdale Baptist Church.
Duke (Duncan Bell-Irving) and Duchess (Irene Rogers) of Faversham are in a tizzy, as their breakfast is interrupted by news that the Duke’s ‘bachelor brother’, Claud, has married and will be coming to Faversham Towers (the ‘Tawse’). Screen capture.
This is an atypical post about an unusual item at the City of Vancouver Archives.
The item is a silent film. That in itself is not uncommon among CVA’s holdings – they have several early silent films. But most of them are non-fiction-oriented (e.g., the construction of a bridge, gas stations of the Lower Mainland, etc). This film, however, is a silent fictitious film which includes several of the B.T. Rogers family and their friends among the actors. The play was called “Bastard Love” and was produced around 1928. This was not an undertaking for people with very limited budgets – and the Rogers family, who bankrolled the venture, certainly weren’t strapped for cash; this is the family that built B.C. Sugar, after all.
Who were some of the prominent players in “Bastard Love”? Duncan Bell-Irving, who played the Duke, was a Great War hero and his parents were neighbours of the B.T. Rogers family. Ernie Rogers, a son of B.T. was in the role of Claud Faversham and his real-life wife, Irene Rogers, was in the role of the Duchess of Faversham. Captain Tucker was played by Reggie Tupper; and Tupper’s wife, Isobel, played Millicent (Claud’s wife). Harold E. Molson (aka “Moley”) played the ”son and heir” (although it isn’t clear to me whose son he was playing; Molson’s future wife, Lila Malkin, played the maid. Elspeth Cherniavsky (who was a daughter of B.T.) was in the part of the native girl; her husband, Jan Cherniavsky (who became an internationally-acclaimed concert pianist), played the parts of the butler and minister. There were several other players, but the pattern is, by now, clear. Those acting in the film were offspring of B.T. Rogers, their spouses, or others of distinction who were likely friends of the Rogers clan.
The play opens with the Duke and Duchess of Faversham sitting down to breakfast. They are supposedly in London at Faversham Towers (‘Tawse’), but in fact they are dining at the Rogers’ Shannon mansion (at Granville and 57th Avenue). Most of the scenes, like this one, are set outdoors, presumably due to the low light indoors which would no doubt have resulted in poor film quality. The Duke opens the morning mail, to find a letter from his ‘bachelor brother’, Claud, in which he notifies the Duke of his recent marriage to Millicent. Claud describes the wedding as having been “more sudden than is perhaps proper for a man in my position”, thereby hinting broadly that their wedding had something of the shotgun about it.
“What can be done?” the Duke and Duchess ask themselves. To which the Duchess points out that “not all the Favershams died in their beds,” thus hinting at fratricide as a solution.
The recently married Claud and Millicent pay a visit to Faversham Tawse. The Duke and Duchess invite Claud and Millicent to join them on a trip to the Swiss Alps, to which they reply with Bertie Wooster-like enthusiasm: “How perfectly ripping!”
The two couples climb Swiss Alps. Screen capture.
The scene shifts to the mountains of Switzerland, one of which the two couples are climbing. (I suspect that the location at which this was shot was one of the local Vancouver mountains).
The title card reads: “Ambitious wife inspires fratricide.” The Duchess produces a knife for the Duke to stab Claud to death. But the Duke, to his credit, proclaims “I can’t!” However, fate steps in and the rope which was holding all of them together on the mountain breaks — just above Claud’s position at the end of it. Claud went tumbling down the mountain to his death. Millicent is inconsolable in her loss.
It’s at this point in the play that I think the plot begins to unravel.
The ciggie-to-ciggie snogging scene. Screen capture.
Two characters who have not hitherto been introduced, a Captain Tucker, and a lady wearing crown-like head gear, spend a nuit d’amour, prior to Tucker leaving for Africa for an unspecified reason. (This is the only scene filmed indoors and is notable for ciggie-to-ciggie snogging!). Tucker sails for Africa aboard a North Vancouver ferry, the next day! A real puzzler was a brief scene of a baby pram being pushed by a nun. In the pram is an adult male!
Bear scene. Screen capture.
The scene changes to Africa, where a man is being mauled by a North American black bear! Whether the bear is a real (presumably, tame) bear or a person in a bear suit, isn’t clear. The bear’s hoped-for luncheon escapes from it by jumping into a pool.
Scene change, still in Africa, but now in the jungle. Here, the guy who had the lucky escape from the bear happens upon a native girl to whom he is abusive (he kicks her repeatedly).
GWHs with dead birds. Screen capture.
Scene change, apparently still in Africa, but in a sort of plain (likely filmed somewhere in Stanley Park) where two gents are out with long guns to shoot birds. They successfully bring down a bird apiece. The great white hunters stumble across a n’er-do-well who is striking a young white girl. The GWHs cannot allow this and so intervene, rescuing said girl from the clutches of the n’er-do-well.
We seem now to be back in London, apparently at the home of the Favershams. Judging by appearances, the Duke and Duchess have aged considerably. It’s possible that one of the GWHs is their son.
The girl rescued from the African plains is in this scene. She is introduced to a matriarch (perhaps the mother of GWH?) and curtsies multiple times. The girl next appears in a maid’s uniform, presumably in the employ of GWH’s mother. GWH gets into hot water (with his mother?) on a couple of occasions for snogging with the now-maid.
Scene change to what appears to be a drug den. What the point is of this scene is utterly beyond me.
The many kids of about the same age. Screen capture.
The play ends with a wedding . . . apparently of GWH to the maid. A title card claims that the union was a very fruitful one and then shows a few frames of about 12 children — all of whom seem to be of about the same age. Fruitful, indeed!
Conclusions
It would be unfair of me to be hyper-critical of this wee movie/play, since, to the best of my knowledge, it was never intended to be anything serious. Given that, I’d make one principal critique of “Bastard Love”. It would have helped viewers to hang onto the plot thread if there had been more title cards throughout. After we moved out of Switzerland, there were very few titles in the film. Having more title cards would have gone a long way toward helping the viewer follow what was going on.
The big and probably unintentional mystery of this film is “who is the bastard love child” and whose child is he/she? If, upon watching “Bastard Love”, you think you know the answer, please comment!
I should note that in January 1979, “Bastard Love” and another film produced by a prominent lower mainland family, “Done by the Son,” were shown at Centennial Theatre (North Vancouver).
I was all prepared to dislike this film; but I found the acting (for an amateur production) to be pretty good, and the “production values”, as they would be called today, weren’t bad at all. In fact, aside from the fact that the plot seemed to meander aimlessly part way through, it was an entertaining way to spend 45 minutes!
CVA 586-16399 – Opening of Dueck Motors at 1305 W. Broadway at night. (Note that a searchlight was used as part of the opening). 1947 Don Coltman photo.
Dueck Chevrolet Oldsmobile established a large, multi-service structure at 1305 West Broadway (just a couple of blocks east of Granville at Hemlock) in 1947. In addition to new cars on display in Dueck’s swanky glass-enclosed showroom, there was a used car department, a huge service centre (which, starting in 1948 would be open 24-hours a day), a U-Drive where folks who were having their vehicle serviced could arrange to get a temporary for-hire vehicle, and a safety inspection division to give drivers an alternative to the provincial safety inspection services.
And a lubritorium.
What, you may fairly inquire, was a lubritorium?* It was where you went to get your car lubed; also known as a grease rack. Dueck seems to have been the first outfit in the city to use this term, although by 1950, at least one other service station (identified as being just south of the Pattullo Bridge) was also employing the term (Sun 25 June 1954); as was a service station toy sold by local firm, Millar & Coe (Sun 10 Nov 1953).
Leonard Dueck (1901-1954), the president and general manager of Dueck’s, had been working out of this Broadway address since 1927 (during that year, it was known as Champion Garage). With the establishment of this new building, Leonard invited his two brothers, Edward (1905-1995) and Ben to join the firm. Ben would become the head of the used car division. Ed had been running his own company, known as Ed Motors (Kingsway at Victoria) until 1946, when he sold that business to assume his responsibilities as assistant to the president and customer relations manager at Dueck Motors (Sun 2 Oct 1947).
Dueck moved out of their Broadway digs in the early 1980s. It still stands today, although the distinctive tower and the deco-ish neon features at the Broadway side of the building have been modified out of existence. During the 1983 B.C. provincial election, the showroom served as the Social Credit Party’s Vancouver campaign HQ (Sun, 16 Apr 1983). Later, it was the Mercedes Benz dealership and today it is Jim Pattison’s Toyota dealership.
CVA 586-11219 – Interior of garage. 1948 Don Coltman photo. If you are interested in seeing others of Coltman’s Dueck photos, go to this link.
Notes
*”Lubritorium” seems to have been coined with ancient Roman bathing in mind. In Roman baths, there were three main rooms: the tepidarium (warm room), calderium (hot room) and frigidarium (cold room). The term was in use in the U.S.A. long before Dueck used it at his Vancouver service station. It was used in Decatur, Illinois in 1926 and in Joplin, Missouri in 1927 and in countless other cities, subsequently. The term seems to have fallen out of vogue by the 1950s.
CVA 2010-006.157 – Balloon on PNE Grounds. May 5 1958. Ernie H. Reksten.
The image above shows the hydrogen-filled* balloon that was featured in the 1956 blockbuster film, Around the World in 80 Days. It was in Vancouver as part of the B.C. International Trade Fair which was held at the PNE grounds in Hastings Park. There wasn’t a balloon used in the original book by Jules Verne of the same title. Verne’s book has been made into various films, the most recent being a TV PBS (2021) version and a Jackie Chan (2017) slapstick version.
The balloon flew on three occasions in Vancouver. The second and third flights were not big successes, as the prevailing winds took the balloon far off course. The first flight, however, was a relative success. Pilot, Francis Shields and passenger, Vancouver Sun reporter Audrey Down, lifted off from Hastings Park at 2.50 p.m. on May 3, 1958. They landed 40 minutes later in a North Vancouver back yard.
To launch the balloon pilot Shields dumped out sandbags while six strong men held it down.
Our first start was a bad one. The basket bumped along the ground and the balloon was heading into a mass of wires and poles at the north end of the ring.
Our human “anchors” caught us on the brink of disaster and dragged us back to the 1,000 onlookers. The pilot wasn’t worried. . . .
I didn’t realize we were moving until a cheer rose from the crowd. It was as if gravity had suddenly let go. The PNE grounds shrunk away. We were rising at the rate of 700 feet per minute but the smoothness and the silence made it seem like a dream. . . .
At 1,500 feet up we were free of the 10-mile-an-hour ground wind and ascent had slowed to 30 feet per minute. . . . We reached a height of 3,200 feet. . . .
Then it was time to come down. . . . Instructions for the landing were to brace myself against the side of the basket and hang onto the ropes.
“Don’t fall out,” warned Mr. Shields. He told of an experience of three of his friends riding in one balloon. “It was a rough landing and the two men fell out. With that weight out of the balloon, the woman in it went right back up to 2,000 feet. Luckily, she was an experienced pilot. . . .”
Below us a woman was industriously digging in her garden. We called to her and she looked up at us, about 500 feet above. “Don’t land that thing on my fruit trees,” she snapped. . . .
The pilot uncoiled a heavy rope and dropped it to the ground, calling to onlookers to grab it and tow us to a clear backyard. First to grab it were two boys. . . . Three men helped them and we were gently set down in the 50-foot backyard. . . .
Vancouver Sun, 5 May 1958
Notes
*Hydrogen is, today, still most commonly used in balloons of this sort for reasons of economy. Hydrogen is far less expensive than helium, although helium is the safer of the gases.
Sch P141 – Exterior of The Granville School at 1175 Haro Street. ca 1900.
Granville School
The building shown above at 1175 Haro Street was built in 1898 for Mlle. Marie-Louise Kern (1861-1951), the principal of Granville School.
The school was a private boarding and day school for girls. Granville School was established in 1896 at 1021 Melville Street (located about where the outdoor seating area is at Bentall Centre today) by Kern and her sister, Salomé Aimee Kern (ca1858-1938). The Kerns were born in the much-disputed territory (between France and Germany) of Alsace-Lorraine. After having the Haro Street structure built, Granville School moved there.
Marie-Louise Thomson (nee Kern). Province 1 May 1954.
By 1906, there were reports in the local press that Mlle. Kern was planning to get out of the school business. It isn’t clear why, but it is probable that it was the usual reason: she was planning to marry soon, and it wasn’t seemly for a married woman to work. In 1907, Marie-Louise Kern married local bookshop and stationery pioneer entrepreneur, Melville Patrick Thomson. It was Thomson’s second marriage; his first wife, Marcella, with whom he had two sons, died in 1902. Melville and his brother, James followed the CPR from Ontario, where they had their earliest business, ultimately opening their Vancouver bookshop in 1889. The brothers retired in 1908, shortly after M. P. Thomson’s marriage, selling their business to Clarke & Stuart.
Marie-Louise Thomson (1861-1951) lived with Melville Thomson (1860-1944) in Oliver, B. C. , where they settled after marrying. She died in Victoria at the age of 90.
Lynwood
1175 Haro, meanwhile, passed into other hands ca 1907 and had a name change, becoming Granville House school. Miss Inglis was the school principal. The Granville House school was a “kindergarten and day school for girls” which also admitted boys to primary grades (Province 11 Aug 1909). A Miss Patterson, a graduate of Hoover University, San Francisco, taught physical culture, which seems to have been an early version of phys. ed. (World 15 Jan 1908).
By 1910, Granville House had another name change to reflect its change of purpose; it would become an apartment house and be known as Lynwood. The apartments would typically house the great and the good who were in the city temporarily, but for a period longer than a hotel would be practical accommodation. One of these people was C. Noel Wilde. At the time he was staying at Lynwood (1911), Wilde was a manager with C. N. Railway. Wilde went on to become Canada’s trade commissioner to Central America and shot himself to death in his home in Mexico City (Province 7 July 1932). Another was J. D. A. Tripp (1867-1945), a concert pianist who hailed from Toronto originally, but who moved to Greater Vancouver (for the gentler winters?) in 1910. Mr. and Mrs. Tripp made their summer home in Caulfeild and wintered in Vancouver proper, staying at Lynwood from time to time (Sun 26 July 1917).
Tower
Finally, in 1953, an auction was held at Lynwood to sell its contents. By 1967, there was a 10-story concrete apartment tower standing where Granville School once was. It had another name change: Villa Esto Apartments (literal translation, “this villa”). It would probably have been more aptly named ‘Lyncrete’ in tribute to the forest of residential towers being erected around it in the West End in the 1960s. In 1994, a 2-bedroom suite with heat and cable included cost about 1000/month. In 2004, a “new” 2-bedroom penthouse in the same building would set you back $1850/month. Goodness knows what sort of sum a suite commands today.
Thanks to Maurice Guibord for his assistance with some details in this post.
Crop of CVA Bu P243.1 – Greyhound Hotel with an illustration of a hound at its secondary entry off of Cordova Street. (Its principal entry was at 232 Water Street).
The logo of The Paper Hound Bookshop at SE corner of Pender at Homer
The Greyhound Hotel (1886-1890) at 232 Water Street and a contemporary bookshop called The Paper Hound at 344 West Pender Street share a strikingly similar logo. I stumbled across the hotel illustration on CVA’s database yesterday. The photo from which the above was cropped is a view of Cordova Street from Cambie. This is a very uncommon view of the Greyhound. Typically, it was photographed at its principal entry: 232 Water Street. There doesn’t appear to be a hound illustration at the Water Street entry. I assume the illustration at the Cordova entry was intended to lure folks who were walking down Cordova in search of accommodation.
The Greyhound was a small hotel with a brief history. It was apparently a pre-Great Fire hostelry on Water Street, so presumably it went up sometime in early 1886. It was rebuilt following the fire and seems to have been up and running by 1887. It had a single proprietor, Harry T. Cole from its opening until it was sold by Cole in 1890 to Louis Wider who renamed it the Occidental Hotel; it was later renamed the Sherman House. Cole left Vancouver after the sale of the Greyhound to move to Victoria where he took on the proprietorship of the Leland Hotel (World 21 July 1891). He married Mary J. Mavis of Langley in 1891 (World 8 Aug 1891). Cole retired from the hotel business in 1894 (World 16 Feb 1894). He died in Victoria in 1911 from pneumonia at the relatively young age of 50.
The Paper Hound Bookshop – my favorite bookstore in Vancouver – opened in 2013 at its current location on Book Row with Kim Koch and Rod Clarke as the friendly and helpful proprietors. The bookshop’s hound is actually modeled on the artist’s now-deceased whippet, Trooper. It was drawn by Victoria artist, Carrie Walker.
The principal visual differences between the hotel’s illustration and that of the bookstore are that the hotel hound was facing right (as opposed to the left-facing book hound), and the hotel hound seems to be flanked by trees while the paper hound is standing upon a book.
Beatrice Amelia Shaw (1901-1924), daughter of William Arthur Shaw (1866-1923) and Amanda Nelson (1876-1950) died in 1924 in New York City on stage, apparently due to heart disease. She was performing as one of “the Dale Sisters” in the International Perfume Exhibition at the 71st Regiment Armory.* Her act consisted of her dancing “eccentrically” while playing the soprano saxophone. An audience of some 1500 people watched as she danced and played her sax. Suddenly, she fainted, collapsing to the stage floor. “Restoratives” were applied by physicians, but she was pronounced dead when ambulance attendants arrived.
A few minutes before her collapse, Beatrice was photographed kissing a newspaper reporter as a demonstration of the ”kiss-proof” rouge manufactured by the cosmetics firm which sponsored the vaudeville act (Sun 5 March 1924).
Beatrice attended Sacred Heart Academy in West Point Grey in her younger years and later attended the Cumnock Hall School of Expression in Los Angeles where she studied violin with Russian-born violinist, Gregor Cherniavsky (1887-1926). She then went to Chicago and New York City where she further pursued musical studies (Sun 5 March 1924). In 1922, Beatrice took part in in the Vancouver Orpheum Theatre’s one-third of a century anniversary performance.
Her father, who predeceased Bearice by almost exactly a year, was the owner of Vancouver’s Strand Hotel (on West Hastings) and business partner with Harry Duker (1886-1982) in Duker & Shaw, Ltd., a major outdoor advertising (billboard) concern in the city.
Beatrice Shaw’s remains were returned to Vancouver and buried in Ocean View Burial Park in Burnaby.
Note
* The Dale Sisters were not truly sisters. They were a trio of unrelated people — Margaret Ranelle, Helen Leopold, and of course, Beatrice Shaw.
Flora and Martin DeMuth were partners both in marriage and in art on Canadian Pacific Steamships. The pair made their first round-the-world cruise in 1925-26 aboard CP’s Empress of Scotland, a year after their wedding.
Memograms: What Are They? Empress of Australia Round-the-World Cruise, 1929-30. UBC Open Collections (both this one and the one at left advertising the “Greenwich Village Follies”).
Martin was a captain in the U.S. Infantry and later served with the American Expeditionary Forces in France during the Great War (Bradford Evening Star 4 Oct 1933). Flora received her artistic training at the Art Students’ League in NYC.
What they most wanted to do after they were married was to combine their love of art and travel and make a living at it. They did this by developing an idea which could be sold to a transportation company and would earn them passage on major trips. The idea was the Memogram. This was a series of “pictorial memoranda originated and produced on board by special cruise artists” (Memograms: What Are They?). Memograms would include graphic calendars, illustrated letter forms to save passengers time in writing correspondence, and maps and diagrams for reference during cruise lectures and on shore excursions.
CP’s Empress of Britain World Cruise Menu cover by Flora DeMuth. February 1939. (This was probably one of Flora’s final jobs for CP before the start of WW2).
The DeMuths sold the Memogram concept (and themselves) to Canadian Pacific Steamships Co. for its long-haul trips. Flora served as Cruise Artist and Martin was Cruise Artist and Lecturer. The DeMuths produced the Memograms aboard ship and duplicated them on the ship’s mimeograph machine. Ultimately, they expanded their artistic talents to producing cover art for CP’s menus (see left for an example).
Martin and Flora made a total of 15 round-the-world trips with CP. The cruises came to an end in 1939 with Canada’s declaration of war on Germany. The couple lived together in Connecticut for a number of years. Flora published illustrations in more than a dozen books during her life.
Martin died in 1961. Shortly after his death, Flora moved to Honolulu, HI where she lived until her death at the age of 87 in 1976; her ashes were scattered at sea (Honolulu Advertiser 4 Aug 1976).
CVA 99-1035 – Double funeral for Captain M. D. & Mrs. Jessie McLennan. Sept 1922. Stuart Thomson photo.
One doesn’t often find stories of romance in the obits. But in early September 1922, if one looked in the local newspapers, you would certainly have found one. It was the love story told of Captain Murdock & Jessie McLennan, “one soul in two bodies” who, as their end approached, spoke openly and fearlessly of their desire to be buried side-by-side in the same grave. They had both lived to the ripe age of 82 and been married to one another for 56 years and 9 months. Capt. McLennan went first, on September 6th and approximately 48 hours later, Mrs. McLennan joined him in death — almost fulfilling their expressed wish that they would die together (Province 8 Sept 1922). Mrs. McLennan was doing so poorly when Mr. McLennan died, that the family decided to postpone his funeral for a couple of days. When she passed two days after his death, they decided that a double funeral would be appropriate.
CVA 99-1034 – Funeral of Mr. & Mrs. McLennan. The three sons of Captain McLennan are on the right side of one of the coffins. Sept 1922 Stuart Thomson photo.
Captain McLennan came to Vancouver in 1879 and was “one of the most widely known sea captains on the Pacific Coast.” Prior to that, had been a mariner based in Nova Scotia (Sun, 7 Sept 1922; Province 6 Sept 1922). The captain lived in Cuba for 20-some years; he returned to Vancouver to retire about 12 years before his and Mrs. McLennan’s passing. All three of his sons followed in his occupational footsteps and became sea captains. The McLennans also had a daughter, Mrs. Frank Gore, who along with the McLennan sons, lived in Greater Vancouver.
The funeral was at Armstrong & Hotson Funeral Home, located just north of Hastings on Dunlevy Street. The building shown in the first photo above, where Armstrong & Hotson was in 1922 still stands, although today it’s known as the “Chapel Arts” building. The crowded scene in the photo is probably largely due to the Vancouver Pioneers’ Association (of which the McLennans were members) turning out in force (Sun, 9 Sept 1922).
The octogenarian couple were laid together in the New Westminster Odd Fellow’s cemetery.
CVA 354-449 – Vancouver Fire Department District Chief Loftus jumping into a life net from the Winch Building (today, the Winch is part of Sinclair Centre at the corner of West Hastings and Granville). 1910. William Jefferson Carpenter photo. Exposure adjusted by mdm.
The life net (or the Browder Life Safety Net) was invented by Thomas Browder in 1847 to assist people who are stuck on the upper story of a building that is on fire.
The photo above, notwithstanding, I doubt that life nets were ever in common use by the Vancouver Fire Department, although they were purchased (from as early as 1907) and were available for use by VFD over several decades.
Given mixed success (to say the least) in other North American cities, the use of life nets in Vancouver only as a last resort makes a great deal of sense to me (World, 23 March 1907). In a New Jersey fire at the Newark Paper Box Company in 1910, for instance, a young woman who was stranded in an upper story of the building was faced with an unenviable dilemma:
Finally I realized that if I was to get out I must start, and I fought my way back to the window. As I looked out I saw women and girls jumping, crying as they fell. One girl struck a picket fence. That was so horrible I decided to stay there and burn. Before long I saw the life net and decided to jump into it. I hit the net alright, but bounced high in the air and sprained my arm.
World 28 November 1910
The sprained arm that came with use of the life net, in that case, definitely seems better than other alternatives available to her.
A Texas fire two years later at a Roman Catholic orphanage however, further demonstrated that jumping into a life net was not fool-proof.
Sister Kostka in jumping from the fourth floor window to reach a life net, evidently lost her balance. Her body struck a railing on the second story. Her back was broken…
Province 30 October 1912
A year following the orphanage fire, there was a fire in Montreal, this one in a multi-story shoe factory. In this case, several female employees (why is it that so many multi-story employees in fires seem to have been female?) were driven to jump 60 feet into life nets. “Many of them who took the jump were badly injured but only one…was seriously hurt…” (Province 23 August 1913. Emphasis mine).
These are just three of many examples of instances in other cities in which life nets were not successful in preserving life without causing injuries — some serious.
Life nets, it seems, required training for rescuers. There has been at least one case in Vancouver where the rescuers (who were not VFD members, in this case, but amateurs) were not trained in the appropriate way of holding a life net. Apparently, the net should be held at shoulder height. The amateurs held it at waist height. This caused the jumper to be injured, as there wasn’t enough space beneath the net to prevent him from hitting the ground (Sun 22 June 1920).
Sun. 23 January 1957. A little black humor.
But it wasn’t only rescuers who should be trained in the use of life nets; jumpers also should receive training. The fellow who was jumping into the life net in the photo above, VFD District Chief Loftus, was ”demonstrating to his men the proper way of jumping into a life net, a hazardous undertaking to the uninitiated.” Just what was the ”proper way” wasn’t explained, but the fact that jumpers would benefit from training when most jumpers are, by definition, amateurs, and unlikely to get training before they need to make use of a life net, makes the whole notion a bit ludicrous.
Life nets have been phased out in recent decades due to the development of modern aerial apparatus available on most fire trucks, today.1
Note
1 There is one variation on the life net which survives in Vancouver. That is the sort of semi-permanent net that serves as an anti-suicide feature beneath some of our major bridges (Lion’s Gate and Burrard Street are two examples).
I think the Christmas season is now near enough that I can safely notify you of an opportunity for you and/or yours (and, at the same time, to ‘toot the horn’ on behalf of a gifted friend)!
Tom Carter is a talented artist and conservator of things vintage Vancouver. (He has been mentioned on several occasions on this blog).
Well, now it’s your chance to own some of Tom’s work. By going to the Etsy link below and paying the nominal price stipulated, you can acquire twenty greeting cards (five different images of Tom’s).
CVA – SGN 80. Cora McFarland, at right, sitting on a bench with an unidentified girl in a wooded area. Dated by CVA as 189-, but more likely ca1908.
Very little is known today about Cora Helen McFarland (1878-1966). She was born and raised in New Brunswick by John and Isabella McFarland and attended the University of New Brunswick (UNB). She earned a Bachelor’s degree from the UNB with a concentration in mathematics. Indeed, she was awarded the Brydone Jack Scholarship (1907) in that area of specialization.1 She never married.
Her occupation from the early years of the 20th century (ca1908) until 1944 (when she retired) was as a school teacher at Queen Alexandra school.
She identified with the Baptist church, although it isn’t known which (if any) Baptist church she attended in Vancouver.
Cora died in Vancouver in 1966; her death was marked by just a single paragraph obituary. She was living at 1915 Haro (Stanley Park Manor) at the time of her passing.
The person on the right in the photo shown above was identified only as “Miss McFarland” by CVA. By reaching out to the Archives at UNB, I was able to obtain access to a photo of Cora H. McFarland (at right), and thereby confirmed that the person shown above was, indeed, Cora.
1William Brydone Jack was a Scot who became professor of mathematics, astronomy, and natural philosophy at King’s College (later to become UNB) and later became the President (1861-1885) of that institution.
In 1921, a contingent of 22 UNB graduates organized a UNB alumni association in B.C. Cora McFarland was among them. And Dr. W. D. Brydone Jack (William Brydone Jack’s son and a physician in Vancouver at that time) was present, too. The first meeting of the association was held at the Picadilly Tea Rooms (732 Dunsmuir) (World 14 May 1921).
Bu P363 – Exterior of Provincial Government: Agent’s Office – 501 Pender Street. From l-r: Robert Alexander Burgoyne, Adele Mary Latimer, John Walker Mahony, Allan Peter Grant, and Frank Henry Behnsen.* Jan. 1914.
The image above has been on my radar for quite some time. Ever since I first saw it in the City of Vancouver Archives online a few years ago, I have assumed that the address shown for it – 501 W. Pender – was a CVA error. For this to be 501 W. Pender, it would need to be located across Richards from MacLeod’s Books. But from the first, I assumed that this was an early image of the space which MacLeod’s Books (and a variety of other retailers) has occupied for several years (at 455 W. Pender).
But I was mistaken.
CVA 772-1304. 1980s. 455 W. Pender before it housed MacLeod’s Books – here it was an antique shop.
VPL43367 501 W. Pender. The site of Cristall’s major appliance shop. 1955.
The image above trulywas of 501 W. Pender; the building was a near twin of the MacLeod’s block, but not quite an identical twin! Two features that distinguish the building above from 455 are: (1) that “501” appears above the heads of the Government Agent staff; and (2) the fenestration (the arrangement of windows and doors) is different in the first image above when compared with 455. As you can see, the doorway is substantially wider on 501 than it is at 455. And, more tellingly, there are two windows in the second story (and the third), but there is only one window at each story above the 455 entrance.
CVA 810-98 – The parking lot at the site of 501 W. Pender. 1979-80.
How long was 501 at the NW corner? Well, it was constructed in 1905 and was demolished following a fire in 1962. On street level during 501’s last years was an outlet of Cristall’s appliances (it also had retail space on Hastings). After Cristall’s on Pender was demolished, it was replaced for 30+ years with – you guessed it – a parking lot. After it had been the Governement Agent’s office (for little more than a single year: 1913-14; it later moved into the Provincial Courthouse) what other sorts of retailers had the space? There was an auctioneer’s at 501 in the mid-1920s (Harvey & Gorrie’s); there was a hobby shop there in the 1930s; and by the 1940s, the hobby shop was sharing the space with a gunsmith and a postage stamp outlet.
Today, the lot (515 W. Pender) is the low-rise office-space (and very underwhelming) component of the Conference Plaza (1993-96 construction).
Google Street View Dec 2020. 515 W. Pender Street (where 501 W. Pender once was).
Note
* I’m appreciative of help from Robert Moen of WestEndVancouver.wordpress.com in identifying in the correct (l-r) order the people who appear in front of the Government Agent’s office at 501 W. Pender St.
The rooming house shown above at 862 Homer Street was, early in its existence, called The Radlett. It was built in 1908 for about $3000 by owner, Thomas Foster. Depending who was counting, there were between 18 and 20 rooms in it. During some of the building’s history, it housed males, exclusively.
As with most multi-resident buildings, The Radlett had its share of tragedies. Like Angus Belfoy, a 76-year-old resident who was found dead on a 1952 afternoon in his gas-filled room (Province 15 Apr 1952).
Other residents were blessed with sunny dispositions, like Ronald Gordon-Cumming, who contributed the following poem to the Vancouver Sun. It concludes positively with a reflection upon his rented accommodation, be it ever so humble. As far as I know, this poem was original to Gordon-Cumming:
These have I loved — the silent woods, The sea in all its restless moods, The sunset with its crimson glow, The murmur when a creek runs slow, The rustle of dry autumn leaves, The golden glow of ripe corn sheaves, The smell of wood-smoke left behind When softly blows the warm spring wind; The song of birds, the swish of grass, The whirr of wings as wild ducks pass; The hum of bees, the smell of clover, The wonderment when winter’s over; The blue of lakes, the lovely sight Of cloudless skies and bright starlight; The drip of rain, the feel of loam — But most of all the lights of home When plodding back upon my way They welcome me at close of day.
Vancouver Sun, 1 Aug 1956
The Radlett survived when buildings half its age were being knocked over for parking lots. It endured until it was all but destroyed by fire in 1991. It was later demolished and an office/residential condo was put in its place — The Beasley, named after one of Vancouver’s city planners, Larry Beasley.
CVA LEG26.14. Zeller’s first Vancouver site (1948-63) at Granville and Dunsmuir. 1960. Vancouver Planning Dept. Artist’s concept of the Granville Mall. (Note: Vancouver’s Woolworth’s store – the chain in which Walter Zeller got his start in retailing – is just four doors down from his Granville/Dunsmuir shop).
Walter P. Zeller, the founder of Zeller’s Ltd., was born in Ontario to Swiss parents (Province 13 May 1949). He got his start in business working at Woolworth’s, but by 1931 he had started his own retail shop in Montreal for “thrifty Canadians”. During WWII, Zeller worked for the federal Liberal government as the principal advisor to the Wartime Prices Board.
Early in WWII, Zeller had the following to say about government and its tendencies. Presumably, these were lessons he’d learned (or perhaps re-learned) during his time advising the feds:
“There can be no such thing as partial control by the government of our economic life. Once the government starts to meddle in economic control, it has to go further and further until its economic control is complete. It can’t control prices, wages and money without controlling production, and it can’t control production without the state being master of the lives and welfare of every human being.” Mr. Zeller demands an end of this, once we have beaten Hitler.
Vancouver Sun 3 Dec 1942
However, what was advisable for governments (shrinkage), wasn’t necessarily good business, in Zeller’s opinion. By late 1943, Zeller began to plan corporate postwar expansion, and those plans included Vancouver. It was announced that Zeller’s had bought the MacMillan building at 413 West Hastings and the adjacent Evans-Sheppard building at 417 West Hastings for about $200,000 (Province 7 Oct 1943). But a Zeller’s store would never occupy either of those properties. The Evans-Sheppard site would be sold about a year later, at cost (Province 15 Aug 1944). The MacMillan block would be sold a few years later with the proceeds being donated to the Marpole Infirmary (aka “provincial home for incurables“) (Province 11 Apr 1950).
Nobody likes to be called “cheap”. “Thrifty” is a much more retail-friendly word!
The first property which Zeller’s would occupy in the city was bought for $800,000 and was in the heart of downtown: the three-story former BC Electric showroom at the corner of Granville and Dunsmuir Streets (Province 18 May 1948). (The building still stands; today it is occupied by The Keg). The manager of the Vancouver store was W. C. Soper. He wasn’t a local man (he came from Ontario where he got his start with with the firm), but most of the non-managerial Vancouver employees were from Greater Vancouver (Province 5 Oct 1948).
The year following, Zeller’s would open its second Lower Mainland store: this one at 604 Columbia in New Westminster. The building had earlier been occupied by Spencer’s and later by Eaton’s. (This building also still stands). I don’t recall ever seeing a restaurant inside any Zeller’s store during the 1970s or later. But apparently there was an eatery in the New West store. There was an ad in the Vancouver Sun in 1971 seeking waitresses and kitchen staff for Zeller’s “new skillet restaurant” in that city (Sun 21 Aug 1971).
Zeller’s acquired the former David Spencer building (and later, Eaton’s) in New Westminster at Columbia and 6th Street. NWPL 1207.
Zeller died in 1957 at the relatively young age of 66 (Province 27 Aug 1957).
The downtown Vancouver store closed in 1963. It was considered too small to accommodate all of the merchandise sold in other Greater Vancouver Zeller’s stores, of which there were then four: Brentwood Mall (the largest Zeller’s store at the time it opened), Middlegate Mall (today’s Highgate Mall in Burnaby), Dell Shopping Centre (Whalley), and the Columbia at 6th Street store in New Westminster. By 1965, Zeller’s had opened four other shops in the Lower Mainland: another in New West (near Woodward’s 6th and 6th store); one each in North Vancouver and Richmond; and one on Lougheed Highway.
In the late 1960s, W. T. Grant, an American department store concern purchased 51% of Zeller’s shares. This was the first in a series of mergers, acquisitions and buy-outs over the next several years. In 1976, Fields stores picked up the Grant shares after Grant went belly-up. Then, The Bay acquired all of Zeller’s shares. Zeller’s became the low-end arm of the Hudson’s Bay Co.
You know how the story ends.
This shuffling of ownership of the chain did no long term good for the store or its employees. Mainly, it made a few people, such as Vancouver’s Joseph Segal, fabulously wealthy. Zeller’s finally bit the dust around 2012 when Target bought it from the Bay. But Target got cold feet a short time later and sold the former Zeller’s real estate to Walmart; Target skedaddled back across the 49th parallel like a scalded cat.
I can’t believe that Walter Zeller would be pleased to know that his department store ended “not with a bang but a whimper”.1
Note
1 The quote is borrowed from T. S. Eliot’s poem, The Hollow Men.
The food floor at Vancouver’s David Spencer Ltd. was fundamentally different from the other local department stores mentioned in this post. Its name was original: “David Spencer’s Model Food Market”. And it wasn’t located with the other departments of the store — it was off-site, at 4th Avenue and Vine Street.
Staff in front of Spencer’s Model Food Market, 1934. Photo courtesy of the late (and greatly missed) Gordon Poppy.
The Model Food Market opened at the end of 1926, and it continued until ca1946. In 1947, when the retailer had just another year or so of life before Eaton’s purchased it, Spencer’s ceased referring to the Model Food Market in their print ads and began to refer to their “culinary world” and to their “service and specialty” food shop. It seems as though in its last year or so, Spencer’s brought their food department into the main store on West Hastings along with other departments.
T. Eaton Co.
Sun. 7 Jan. 1953
The (poorly-named) Eaton’s Foodateria began advertising in local newspapers shortly after the retailer moved into David Spencer’s former space at what is today SFU’s Harbour Centre campus, in 1949. According to long-time Vancouver resident, Angus McIntyre, the Foodateria was on the sub-basement level facing Cordova Street. Eaton’s established a “Parcel Checking Centre” inside their customer garage ca1955 (about the same time as Woodward’s got the better-named “Parcel Pickup” at their department store – it isn’t clear which retailer had the idea first).
By 1959, Eaton’s had made an arrangement with Dominion Markets (at Main & 14th and Kingsway at Willingdon) to take over their food floor (Province 9 Jan 1959). This collaboration was reportedly the first of its kind in Canada. In the full-page ad to announce the Dominion/Eaton’s collaboration, it was announced that the former Foodateria would be known henceforth as Dominion at Eaton’s. Eaton’s Home Delivery Service (another service also offered by Woodward’s; there was a ‘nominal fee’ charged by both stores) and Eaton’s charge accounts would continue to be honoured on the new food floor. Eaton’s Foodateria employees were taken on by Dominion. They did not lose their pensions, seniority or other employee benefits; Dominion assumed all of those (Province 28 Apr 1959). The lease of Eaton’s food space to Dominion appeared to last until 1968.
The logos of T. Eaton Co. and Sears Canada on the door handles at the Granville/Robson St. locations of both department stores. ca1990s. Greg Burke photo.
Eaton’s moved to what would prove to be its final location on Granville Street in the early ’70s (where Sears and later Nordstrom’s would be located) with the opening of Pacific Centre Mall. My wife and I both recall there being a grocery department in the basement of the Granville outlet during the years after 1991 (when we moved to Vancouver) until Eaton’s closed its doors for the last time in 1999.
Hudson’s Bay Co.
CVA 586-10783. Hudson’s Bay Company’s Food Dept. 1948 Don Coltman Photo.
Yes, Vancouver’s Hudson’s Bay Co. had a food floor, too, at one time. It was located in the basement of the flagship store on Granville Street from the early 19-teens until the late-1960s. It’s likely that HBC sold food even earlier than the 19-teens — probably from the 1880s out of its first store at 150 Cordova, but it didn’t have the space to dedicate an entire floor to groceries until it moved into the larger space on Granville.
Screen capture of Vancouver ad man, Fin Anthony (1929-2017) doing an ’80s TV spot for “Woodward’s Famous Food Floors”
As with HBC, I suspect that Woodward’s sold groceries from their very start as a business (in the case of Woodies, that was in 1892). However, Woodward’s didn’t have the space for a dedicated food floor until ca1902, when they moved into the large piece of real estate at Hastings and Abbott which they would hold onto (along with many other properties) until the chain closed in 1993.
When I think of Woodward’s (about which I freely admit that I am sentimental; I was a clerk on the food floor in Lethbridge, 1981-1986), among other memories are those of Fin Anthony, a Vancouver advertising man who became the face and voice of Woodies on TV (and also on radio, I think). He is rumored also to have been the wind behind the famous $1.49 Day whistle. Whether that is true or not, I do not know. The jingle was composed by the late Tony Antonias.
This appears to be one of the name tag variants worn by Woodward’s Food Floor staff. It was never one of the tags that I wore; either this came into use before my time on the food floor or (more probably) it was a tag worn exclusively by food floor managers. This was part of a display at the New Westminster City Hall lobby a few years ago.
CVA 321-4 – Group outside Cosmopolitan Hotel & Restaurant at NW corner of Cordova and Abbott Streets. 188-. Canadian Photo Co. Photo modified somewhat by author to enhance features of the image.
World. 28 Dec 1888.
The Cosmopolitan Hotel [1], or ‘the Cosmo’ as it came to be known, was reputedly one of the first hotels to be opened after the 1886 Great Fire (World 11 Aug 1889). It was, presumably, open for business in 1887. According to Major Matthews, the first city archivist, the Cosmo took in a grand total of 65 cents on its first night in business. It was believed to be “too far uptown”! (Early Vancouver, Matthews, Vol. 4, p. 227)
The first owner of the Cosmo was Jacob Cohen. He died in 1889. Not long after Cohen’s death, ownership passed to a group of San Francisco owners.
The Cosmo Restaurant, “open day and night”, crowed that it was “the only first-class restaurant in town” and had “Eastern oysters in every style” (Sun 18 June 2016).
The manager of the Cosmo from nearly the outset was Vancouver’s earliest police officer, Jackson T. Abray (ca1856-1944). He was commissioned to be the first constable by Vancouver’s first mayor, M. A. MacLean, following the Great Fire and he remained in that job for three years. In 1890, Abray went into the hotel business, becoming the manager of the Cosmopolitan in that year and later of the Burrard Hotel.
In the summer of 1889, the Cosmo received a face-lift: the exterior was repainted; interior-wise, much of the work was done to the bar, including adding a new bar back (see photo below, which seems to show the improved bar). The architect responsible for the improvements was N. S. Hoffar.
CVA 321-2 – Interior of Cosmopolitan Hotel saloon 188-. The gent on the customer’s side of the bar, resting his left arm on the bar and with a cigar in his right hand looks like Jackson Abray.
World. 27 Aug 1894.
In the early years of the 20th century, the City waged a small war against the Como through its licensing regulations. Essentially, the city was embarrassed by the wood frame hotel and wanted the San Francisco owners to rip it down and rebuild — this time with brick and stone. The owners of the Cosmo were willing to do as the City requested, but they wouldn’t be rushed, much to the consternation of City officials.
There were others who wanted Abray’s liquor license yanked, notably among them, H. H. Stevens, secretary of the Moral Reform Association. In a letter written in 1906 to the civic licensing commissioners, Stevens claimed that the Cosmo was “the rendezvous of thugs, theives and rogues, and the resort of women of ill-fame” (World 9 May 1906). The licensing commissioners granted Abray the Cosmo liquor license.
Finally, the wood frame Cosmo Hotel was demolished in ca1908 and was replaced with a brick and stone structure which would house retail shops on the ground floor and office space above. This building doesn’t still stand. La Casita Mexican restaurant (ground floor) today is where the Cosmo was located.
CVA 321-5 – Interior of Cosmopolitan Hotel Restaurant and Oyster Bar 188-. Photo modified somewhat by author to enhance features of the image.
CVA 371-1302 – Jackson T. Abray (far left) and others in front of the entrance to the Comopolitan Hotel at 101 Cordova Street, ca1900. Note the ad in background for Stanley Park Brewery.
The brick and stone building that replaced the old Cosmo Hotel at the NW Corner of Abbott & Cordova. This structure is not extant.
Notes
There were several other Cosmopolitan Hotels in BC around the same time: New Westminster, Kamloops, and even tiny Ymir, BC all boasted hostelries of the same name.
Postcard Image of the Spiro Tower at PNE. Plastichrome Natural Colour Productions, Burnaby.
The Spiro Tower, more commonly known as the Space Tower, on the Playland grounds at the Pacific National Exhibition (PNE) was Vancouver’s response to Seattle’s Space Needle. [1] The Seattle structure, built for Expo 1962, dwarfed Vancouver’s tower, however (Needle: 605 ft.; Tower: 330 ft; the traveling cabin ascended to 216 ft). Prospective ‘space travelers’ would cue up on the twisty concrete at the Tower’s base.
The Tower was built in 1968 and endured at the PNE site until 1979. The double decker cabin would hold a maximum of 60 people and would rotate three times on its way up the pole.
The Tower was designed in Switzerland and was imported from Mercedes-Benz of West Germany. The Mercedes logo was mounted atop the Tower, but it caused such a stink among the general public that it was later removed [2].
“[G]uides, dressed in authentic Swiss drindl costumes, are on each deck ready to answer your questions and show you the many points of interest.” [3]
Province columnnist, Lorne Patton, seemed to enjoy poking fun at the name of the Spiro Tower and the fact that it shared its name with Richard Nixon’s running mate and ultimately his V-P (until his resignation in the wake of the Watergate scandal), Spiro Agnew (Province 14 Sept 1968).
Sun 1 April 1969. Shows PNE Space Tower manager, Don Shaw, some 200+ feet above the PNE grounds on the Space Tower.
CVA 180-4279.11 – The PNE Space Tower with the Mercedes-Benz logo affixed to it. 1969.
CVA 180-4028.07 – Opening ceremonies of the PNE Space Tower showing some of the Tower Guides in their ‘authentic Swiss dirndl costumes’. 1969.
The PNE Space Tower was pretty popular for the first few years of its existence, but by the late 1970s, its popularity had waned, and it was operating in the red. It must be admitted that the tower wasn’t the most exciting ride at the PNE. It didn’t really count as a ride at all to any but the likes of me for whom ascending even a few feet is more than enough of a thrill! So, by 1979, the PNE authorities announced that the Spiro/Space Tower would be dismantled.
Expo Space Tower (Son of PNE)
A sexed-up version of the PNE Tower would be purchased by the province in time for Expo ’86. The Expo version would also be known as “Space Tower”. The Expo tower (at about 236 feet) was a little shorter than the PNE tower, but the new edition had a more thrilling component for those who were looking for more than a view of Vancouver: they could have an oxymoronic ‘controlled free-fall’ from ‘Parachute Drop’ pods from near the top of the tower.
CVA 2010-006.466 – Expo ’86 site including the Expo Space Tower. 1986. Ernie Reksten photo.
The Expo Tower, like that at the PNE was Swiss-designed. But unlike the PNE version, the Expo tower was plagued with mechanical issues. I counted at least 4 different occasions on which Expo tower riders were stranded. Headlines such as “Space Trap for Visitors” and “Stuck Fair Ride Scares 2 Teens” weren’t ideal from the perspective of Expo’s public relations staff! But it didn’t seem to unduly affect ridership — by mid-July 1986, the Space Tower Parachute Drop had “terrified just over $1 million out of 415,000 people” (Province 20 July 1986).
The Expo tower was sponsored by Minolta camera company, and, naturally, they wanted to have their logo displayed atop the tower. Yes, this is a case of ‘dejas-vu all over again’! When it became clear that the giant Minolta sign would be visible over much of the city, the Expo powers-that-were insisted that the sign be replaced by a more modest corporate flag (Sun 9 July 1986).
At the conclusion of Expo, of course, the Son of PNE was dismantled, just as the PNE Tower had been. But unlike Big Daddy (as far as I know), Expo Tower was sold. Environmental Systems Co. of Little Rock, Arkansas, reportedly paid just over $200,000 for the Expo Space Tower (Sun 17 June 1988).
Notes
Unlike the Space Needle, however, neither the PNE Tower nor the future Expo ’86 Tower had a restaurant at their summits.
Why the Mercedes logo should have caused such an uproar was likely due to it being a German company. American corporate logos (such as Gulf and Shell oil) adorned the tops of such buildings as the Vancouver Block well before this period, without outcry.
“Sprio-Tower Has a View With a Difference”. Pamphlet, ca1968
CVA Bu P190 – Group portrait of the Carl Berch Stock Company standing in front of the People’s Theatre. The gent third from the left is Berch. ca 1904.
Early Years
Carl E. Berch was born ca1866 in Wisconsin. But he wasn’t made for mid-western life. He was made for the stage. Indeed, he seems to have made dramatic gestures throughout his life.
Berch first came to the attention of the press in 1891, when he was about 25. He performed with the Howard Athenaeum Company in Louisville and later in Boston (and presumably, in other centers) in the drama, True Irish Hearts. By 1892, however, he’d moved to the land of greater stage opportunities – California – and during the rest of his life, he performed mainly on the west coast of the U.S. and Canada.
By 1894, he was managing a stock company in San Jose. It was widely reported in March of that year, however, that he’d taken advantage of his position as manager to steal $200 of the company’s funds. Oddly, this event didn’t seem to have a negative impact on his career, and indeed after its initial mention in the press in that month, it seems to have been hushed up and never mentioned again; mind you, he seems to have been removed from his managerial role. 1895 was a very busy year for Berch. He was leading man with the Cooper Stock Company at the Burbank Theatre (Los Angeles Herald 30 July 1895).
1895 was a Red Letter year for Berch in another way. In September, he married actress Carrie Clark Ward. It wasn’t a standard wedding, however. Oh, no. His wedding was incorporated into the play The CountryGirl. It was Berch’s first marriage; Ward’s second. She had been married when she and Berch first met, to actor James Ward. Carrie decided that she’d prefer to trade in James for a younger model, however, and so six months before The Country Girl wedding, she’d obtained a divorce from him. Officiating at the ceremony, appropriately, I guess, was a preacher from the “Church of the New Era”!
A novel wedding announcement! Los Angeles Herald 29 Sept 1895.
From 1896-1900, Berch was on the west coast of the U.S. acting in various plays. By 1901, presumably, enough time had passed since the San Jose theft, and he assembled his own stock company: the Carl Berch Company (Sacramento Bee, 4 Oct 1901).
In Autumn of 1903, Berch decided to sign a three-year contract which would make him the lessee and manager of the People’s Theatre in Vancouver (NW corner Pender and Howe).
People’s Theatre Manager, Vancouver
The People’s hadn’t always been so named. The structure was built in 1899 and was initially known as the Alhambra Theatre. Presumably it was its moorish appearance that caused it to be so named. Later, it was the Theatre Royal [1]. Then, it was the People’s Theatre and after that it became the first Orpheum Theatre in Vancouver [2].
Prov 6 Sept 1898. This is an artist’s or architect’s drawing of the anticipated Alhambra Theatre (later Theatre Royal, People’s Theatre and the first Orpheum Theatre in Vancouver). The theatre NEVER looked this good, in reality. See a photo of the Alhambra below for comparison.
The Allen Stock Company was the first theatrical group to play at the People’s during Berch’s time as lessee/manager. More often than not, Berch took a role in whatever was playing.
In the summer of 1904, a Berch School of Dramatic Art, was established. Berch was to take on students in dramatic art, expression, oratory, and fencing. It seems to have been very short-lived, however, as I found no mention of it in press accounts or ads beyond June 1904. Perhaps registrations were dismal.
It seems that Berch’s marriage to Carrie Ward had fallen apart by or (probably) before 1905. This notice appeared in a local newspaper in October 1905:
On and after this date I will not be responsible for any debts contracted by Katherine Brennan, now known as Mrs. Carl Berch. Carl Berch Vancouver, Oct 11, 1905
The Province 11 Oct 1905
CVA Bu N424 – Alhambra Theatre, the first name of the People’s Theatre. 1899? The building was demolished in 1914. It was ultimately replaced by the still-standing Stock Exchange building.
The notice suggests that Katherine Brennan (birth name of someone who was later known as Mrs. John P. Dalton) had married Berch at some point and that they were no longer living as husband and wife. Just how many marriages Berch had isn’t clear.
As the end of November, 1905 approached, so did the end of Berch’s three-year lease of People’s Theatre. The theatre was owned by a syndicate of which the controlling interest was held by W. H. Lucas [3]. The new lessees were to be Tim Sullivan and John Considine. On November 24th, the theatre would pass out of Berch’s lesseee-ship and into that of Sullivan & Considine (S&C).
But Berch didn’t see things that way.
In the days leading up to the 24th, Berch was blabbing to anyone who would listen that there was a clause in his lease which granted him the option of a three-month renewal. So confident was he that the terms of the lease were in his favour, that he several times offered to bet Mr. Dorr (who would be acting as local lessee for S&C) $1000 that Berch’s interpretation of the lease contract would carry the day. Dorr didn’t take Berch up on his wager.
On November 24th, the huge headlines (not quite in war-declaration type size, but nearly!) in the Province proclaimed:
CARL BERCH USED GUNS TO HOLD PEOPLE’S THEATRE
The opening of hostilities in the bloodless but highly exciting struggle for the possession of her People’s Theatre occurred at the unearthly hour of 3.35 this morning. The first engagement, as the war correspondents would say, was brief but decisive, lasting only twenty minutes. But during this time firearms were discharged, blows exchanged, doors broken in, padlocks wrenched from their fastenings, and volleys of cuss words exchanged between the opposing forces.
Province 24 Nov 1905
I won’t get into the details of the affair, except to say that Berch seemed not to grasp (or chose not to) the fundamental difference between leasing and owning a property. Lucas was the principal owner; Berch the lessee. As such, Berch had no dog in the fight for ownership of thetheatre.
Needless to say, when all was said and done and everyone had had their day (and say!) in court a few weeks later, Berch was no longer the People’s lessee; he was professionally homeless.
String of Misfortune
Carl Berch in middle age. Edmonon Journal 20 May 1908.
After ‘losing’ the People’s Theatre (as he would probably have described it), Berch had a string of bad luck.
Berch expressed early interest in acquiring a theatre site which ultimately was developed by Alexander Pantages for his initial Vancouver theatre on Hastings Street — the ’first’ Pantages (Province 15 Feb 1906). Berch was unsuccessful in his bid for this property.
Berch had another flight of fancy, this time in Edmonton. He also considered building a theatre there. But, like the future Pantages site, this plan also came to naught (Edmonton Journal 20 May 1908).
He was in San Francisco when the big earthquake hit in April 1906 and, according to the World, he lost all his possessions. There was some talk of him settling in Vancouver after that, but he didn’t follow through (World 17 June 1908). Instead, he returned to coastal U.S. cities where he plied his acting trade.
Finally, Berch had the misfortune to be aboard the coastal steamer Alaska when it was wrecked on Blunt’s Reef (near Cape Mendocino, northern CA) in August 1921. He was missing and presumed dead at age 55. Presumably, he was not married at the time, as his sister, Mrs. Edna Berch Corbeau was the one who brought suit for his death in the accident (San Francisco Examiner 16 Nov 1921).
Notes
Tom Carter has made the observation that there have been at least four “Royal” Theatres in Vancouver over the years. This was the first; three other theatres on Hastings were so named at different times. (Email communication with the author, September 10, 2021).
Interestingly, as early as September 1899 (just a few months after the Alhambra first opened), it was advertising itself as “Alhambra, the People’s Theatre” (Province 14 Sept 1899).
Another member of the theatre syndicate (owners of Alhambra/Theatre Royal/People’s Theatre/Orpheum) was that musical fellow around town, Fred Dyke.
(Crop of CVA 790-0634 – 1601 West 10th. 1985?). This was the campus of the VBTS, built at 10th and Fir (Fairview); it opened in September 1923 nearly debt-free. Because of its slightly peculiar, long and tall shape, it was known affectionately as “the Ark” by VBTS students over the years. By the time this photo was made ca1985, it had become home to Columbia College. I don’t know when the building was demolished, but there is no building currently at this location; just a green space adjacent to an apartment block.
The Vancouver Bible Training School (VBTS) was a child of the Vancouver Evangelistic Movement (VEM). Among the goals of VEM was the establishment of a Bible training school. The school was, accordingly, started in 1918. The raison d’etre of the school was to be an interdenominational evangelical school which had as its focus the training of the layperson to work in local churches. In this regard, it was an early predecessor of Regent College (at UBC).
The first principal of the interdenominational school was Anglican minister, Rev. Walter Ellis (1883-1944).¹ The first home of VBTS was VEM’s downtown office at 121 West Hastings. Within a year or so, it moved to a rented facility at 356 West Broadway (near Yukon). By autumn 1923, however, they moved into their own building shown above at the NW corner of 10th and Fir. Following Ellis’s death in 1944, the principal of the school was mainline Baptist minister, Rev. J. E. Harris.
CVA 400-1 – Vancouver Bible School – 1930-1931. 1930. R. A. Spencer photo. Note: First Baptist’s future long-time secretary, Edith Spain, appears above to the left of the calligraphic “1930-31”. The redoubtable Miss Spain served FBC as its secretary from the mid 1950s until her retirement in 1975. She died at age 100 in 2005.
The school was able to sustain itself as an interdenominational institution until 1956. It was then taken over by the Baptist General Conference (Swedish) denomination and the school’s curriculum became more narrowly defined and the name of the school changed at some point to become the Vancouver Bible Training Institute (VBTI).
VBTI wrapped up operations at this site by the mid-70s, I believe. It then moved to Surrey where it finally closed in 1977.
Notes
¹Historian, Robert K. Burkinshaw is the source of most of the material in this post. He has written about the Bible Training school and its influential principal, Rev. Walter Ellis, here. He also devoted the better part of Chapter 3 to VBTS and Ellis in his excellent volume, Pilgrims in Lotus Land: Conservative Protestantism in British Columbia, 1917-1981.
CVA Str P427: West side of 600 Granville, Looking South. 1921
The scene above is of 1921 Vancouver on the west side of Granville Street, bounded by Dunsmuir (behind the photographer) and Georgia Street (where Hotel Vancouver #2 stands). Our principal interest in this post is the rooming house which is marked by a sign just this side of the Old Country Lunch sign: Lyric Rooms (635 Granville).
The Lyric Rooms were located in the upper floors of the four-storey building immediately to the south of Walter Calder’s photography studio (its location is a bit clearer in the image below as the building in which Fletcher Bros. piano house was at street level). It advertised itself as being just half a block from the Colonial Theatre, which was at the SW corner of Granville and Dunsmuir.
Why am I sentimental about this pre-1970s block, when it was gone, in its photographed incarnation, long before I first set foot in this city? I think it is a sense of regret, as much as anything, which I feel for this lost block and for the attitudes of some Vancouverites who came before me who shrugged when asked if they would miss these buildings once they were demolished.
CVA 2015-028.18 – Mid-600s of West Side of Granville Street between Dunsmuir and West Georgia. 1920-1922.
Occupants
The building in which the rooming house was located was built in 1912. In 1913, when it opened, it was known, originally, as “Granville Lodge”. It was advertised as being “beautifully furnished; hot water in every room; steam heat, splendid view; moderate prices” (World 13 March 1913). The manager of the Lodge at the time was R. Ferguson.
In 1914, an auction was held at the rooming house: “Thirty-six rooms of first-class furniture in almost new condition and large quantity of bed linen; cost originally about $4000” (Province 11 Nov 1914) [1]. By 1917, the Granville Lodge became the Lyric Rooms. The proprietor of the ‘teen years was W. H. Dial. J. N. Kidd was the manager in the 1920s.
An assortment of palmists, phrenologists, clairvoyants, and providers of “vibratory treatments” were early and regular occupants of the Lyric. An example is Madam Stella, “the world’s greatest palmist and phrenologist. She reads the entire life just as the head and hand indicate, gives advice on all business matters, love and marriage. Are you in trouble? If so consult me. Gives advice on all affairs of life. Special readings this week only $1. Business hours 9 to 9. The Lyric Rooms. Room 2” (Province 27 March 1917).
In the 1940s, the proprietor of the Lyric was John Carrison. Paul Carrison was a brother of John; he ran a small business in one of the rooms in which eyeglass repairs were made.
In the early 1950s, the Lyric became for the rest of its days the “Marlboro Hotel”. Daily ($1.50) and weekly ($8) rates were advertised. In the 1960s, the manager of the Marlboro was Enoch Amos.
In the last decade or so of the life of the Marlboro it seemed to attract, principally, old-age pensioners.
Decision Made in ’60s: Demolish the Block!
Vancouver’s mayor in the late 60s, Tom Campbell (who will likely forever be associated with Project 200 and the destruction of Hogan’s Alley), also did the deal that saw the entire 600 block west side of Granville expropriated, demolished and sold to Cadillac Fairview (the owners, then and now, of Pacific Centre) for $1 Million.
But although Tom Campbell and the City Council of his day must own this decision to expropriate and demolish the west side of this block (among other buildings, such as the Angelus Hotel), it has to be acknowledged that the earlier Mayor Bill Rathie and his Council, as well as many members of the general public, were supportive of the poor decision ultimately made.
CVA 2009-001.060 – Shops along 600 block, west side, Granville Street. 1965. Leslie F. Sheraton, photographer.
Neighbours on the Block
I love browsing the street directories of early Vancouver. They are surprisingly revealing of the culture of a district over a number of decades. I’ve surveyed the neighbours of Granville Lodge/Lyric Rooms/Marlboro Hotel below by picking representative years: 1914, 1924, 1934, 1944, and 1954.
Does a pattern emerge, upon reading through the detailed decade-by-decade account of the shops on that block? I think so. It is a pattern of some of the essential businesses of a small town. There is entertainment (theatres, sweets shops), education (beauty schools, music teachers), there are physicians, optometrists, opticians, and druggists. Hobbies are catered to (photography, bookstores, tobacco outlets), housing, cafes, and no lack of men’s and women’s clothiers and shoe stores! Indeed, the only essential service that doesn’t seem to be catered to on the block is that of a general grocer.
Contrast the 1913-1970 period with today on that block, and you will see a substantially diminished range of goods and services offered on that block at street level. Today, you’ll find a Meinhardt’s at the Dunsmuir corner where the Colonial Theatre was; a Take Five coffee establishment next door; an H&M women’s fashion outlet adjacent to that; and next door to H&M, an Aritza women’s wear. One might argue that I’m not taking into account all of the businesses in the high-rise towers that crowd that block. But I’d reply that, even if one took those into account, they serve a pretty similar clientele (white collar businessmen and women) and don’t represent much of a retail street-level draw to the block. And, it’s worth noting, H&M and Aritza are both huge multi-national chains, rather than local entrepreneurs, as were most of those businesses that appear below.
1914
The Colonial Theatre building was at the Dunsmuir end of the block (603). Sautter jewellers was at 601; adjacent to the theatre was a cigar shop (605). Anderson and Warnock hardware was next (613), followed by Thomas Allan, jewellers (615). Singer Sewing Machines had a shop adjacent to (or above) the jewellers; Drs. McKenzie and Farish had surgeries (probably upstairs) (619) as did Progress photo studio (which seemed to sublet from the physicians (619). Next door was Edwards Brothers photo supply shop (623) and next to that, London Popular Cafe (625). At 627, was space rented by Harry Speck (a ladies tailor), George Little (an artist-craftsman-decorator; and, incidentally,an outspoken critic of liquor prohibition), and by Crown photo studio (purchased that year by A. T. Bridgman of Edmonton). 629 was host to The Ark Candy Kitchen, another cigar shop called Gold Standard and to Charles Cook’s pool hall. Fletcher Brothers piano house was the retail establishment at the time that was at the retail space beneath Granville Lodge (which would soon become Lyric Rooms) (633/635). At 637 was the Oriental Trading Co. and (probably above that) was Columbia Optical Parlors (639). 641 was the Sons of England building and had as lessees James Hildreth (tailor), W. G. Sutherland (decorator), Ferguson & Eaves (artists), and the Old Country Tea Rooms. A shoe retailer (A. S. Vachon) was at 649 and another hardware shop (Fraser Hardware) was adjacent to it (651). In 655 was Thomas & McBain clothiers and probably above it was Famous Ladies Tailoring Co. (657). Adjacent to the clothiers’ shop was A&B Co. liquor store. 661 was the Victoria Chambers building, which seems to have been a rooming house of sorts (with small businesses among its tenants, much like Granville Lodge/Lyric/Marlboro). Among its tenants was one who was particularly noteworthy: Hart McHarg, who would ultimately have the first Georgia Viaduct named in his honour. McHarg would die in 1915 at Ypres, among many thousands of other Canadians. Another photo supply shop, called United Photographic Stores, was at 665, and probably beneath it was Van Floral (667). At 673-675 was the Gardner Browne Co. furniture store. The Bell Irving building (similar to Victoria Chambers) was at 679 and Gaskell Book & Stationery Co. was at 681. At 693, at this time, was Granville Theater (a tiny space that house a theatre for just a short time — from 1911 to ca 1914; it would later serve as a retail space for a boy’s wear shop, a shoe store, and many other small businesses). Norman G. Cull, Optician (695), had his professional space above Georgia Pharmacy (699) at the Georgia Street end of the block.
1924
Again, 603 was the Colonial Theatre. Adjacent to the theatre by 1924 was no longer a cigar store, but Colonial Confectionary (605). At 615 was Dall’s Real Lace Co. (which retailed items such as handkerchiefs and boudoir caps!). 619 was shared by assorted individuals, including Dr. McKenzie and a retail firm, Benson & Hedges Ltd. (presumably a purveyor of tobacco-related items). At 623 was Scottish Ham Curers. 627 was shared by Dr. Casselman, dentist, and W. H. Calder’s photo studio. Turpin Bros. haberdashers (purveyors of men’s clothing) were at 629; Fletcher Bros. piano house was still at 633; and Lyric Rooms were at 635, of course. 637 was Calhoun’s Ltd. (a hatter). Ireland and Allan, booksellers were at 649. 653 was apparently the residence of A. B. Smith (the “passenger traffic manager” in Vancouver for Northern Pacific Railway). 655 was still Thomas & McBain clothiers. Walter F. Evans music shop was at 657. At 665 was Brown Bros. florists. Walter M. Gow, jeweler was next (669). 675 was R. C. Purdy’s, purveyor of chocolate and candy. 679 was still the Bell-Irving building (there was a tenant whose name I recognized occupying one of the rooms at this time: Fred W. Dyke, a teacher with Vancouver Schools and a musician of some distinction in early Vancouver). The Bootery (a shoe shop) was at 681, then Van Stationers (683), and Rae-Son shoes (Rae was James Rae – one of the earliest shoe retailers in the city; “Son” was literally his son, J. Arthur Rae) (693). Norman Cull and Georgia Pharmacy anchored the south end of the block.
1934
The Colonial Theatre building was still at the Dunsmuir end of the block. Bert Henry’s tobacco shop was on the north side of the theatre (601), then the theatre (603) and bracing it on the south side, J. McDonald’s confectioners. 613 was W. C. Stearman’s hardware store and 617 was Dall’s (known by this time as “Dall’s Linen“). 619 was a still-unnamed building that housed various small businesses, including R. H. Marlow’s, photo studio and Maison Henri beauty shop. At 623 was Ingledew’s shoe shop (until 1925, it had been across Granville on the east side; it would later move to the 500 block on the west side). 627 was shared by W. H. Calder’s, photo studio and dentist, Dr. R. F. Edmonds. Gordon’s women’s clothiers was at 629 and Edward Chapman’s Men’s Furnishings was at 633. Lyric Rooms were at 635. At 637 was Du Barry’s women’s wear and (probably above that) was space occupied by a church group identified as Unity Fellowship in Truth (641). Ireland & Allan, booksellers, were still at 649. 651 was shared by Rae’s Clever Shoes and Miss V. Dalgleish’s women’s furnishings. 653 was shared by an early site of the Bon Ton Cafe and H. F. Storry & Co, tailors. Turpin Bros., by this year, had moved up the block a bit to 655. And 657 was occupied by the Marilyn Hat Shoppe. 659 was J. W. Kelly Piano Co. 665 was Brown Bros. florists, and 669 was the professional space shared by W. M. Gow, Jeweler and H. A. LIphardt, optometrist. By this time, R. C. Purdy’s was no longer just a chocolate and candy shop, but also a cafe (675) (here is a photo from 1935 indicating that it was forced to move its cafe out of the 675 Granville space due to crippling rent increases from the landlord; how little has changed!). The Bell-Irving building (679), at this time, was occupied by a variety of folks, from a palmist to music teachers. 681 was T. Foster & Co. men’s clothiers. 683 was Great Northern Railway’s office. 691 was the Fashion Bootery; 693 was Sobie’s Silk Shop, and 695 was space shared by Potters Jewelers and I. P. Blyth optometrist (Blyth seems to have filled the space left vacant by Norman Cull). 699 was shared by Vancouver Drug Co. (replacing Georgia Pharmacy) and Con Jones Ltd. (of the famous Don’t Argue logo).
1944
There were in 1944 businesses on either side of the Colonial Theatre (603): Who’s Your Hosier lingerie (601) and Unusual Gift Shop (605). Dall’s Linens (613) was still going. At 615, was Sally Shops women’s clothiers and Pacific Dress and Uniform( 619) shared the space with Maxine’s Beauty School. At 623 was Ingledew’s shoes; Hollywood Dance School was at 627, and a later West Hastings Street stalwart, Millar & Co. China was at 629. Edward Chapman’s men’s wear was at 633 and, of course, Lyric Rooms was at 635. Tip Top Tailors was at 637 and, sharing the space of 641 were Mrs. P. M. Schuldt (music teacher),John Goss‘s vocal studio, and F. L. Smith (a dramatic artist). Ireland & Allan, booksellers continued to hold onto 649 and D’Allaird’s women’s clothiers had the space at 651. The Bon Ton Cafe was still at 653; and there were two tailoring establishments hidden away upstairs from them. At 655 was Turpin Bros. men’s wear and next door, at 657, was another men’s wear outlet, Charlton & Morgan. At 665 was Brown Bros. florists, next door was Gow’s Jewelers (669) and sharing 669, likely upstairs, was Liphardt the optician. Purdy’s maintained their chocolate/candy shop at 675, but now shared it with the Devon Cafe (instead of their own cafe). There continued to be an odd assortment of small businesses at 679, and at 681 was Willard’s women’s clothiers. Great Northern Railway had an office at 683; Vanity Shoes was at 691; Georgia Style Shop at 693; and Potter’s jewelers was at 695. Vancouver Drug Co. had become Cunningham Drugs at 699.
1954
By this year, bracing the Colonial Theatre (603) were Pauline Johnson’s Candy Store (601) and Jewel World (605). Rae-Son shoes had moved to 609, and Dall’s Linens were still at 613. Sterling Shoes was now at 615. 619 was shared, still, by Pacific Dress & Uniform and Maxine’s Beauty School. Edward Chapman’s men’s wear was at 633 and Marlboro Hotel was at 635. 637 was Tip Top Tailors, and 645 was Sweet Sixteen ladies’ wear. Ireland & Allan was still at 649 and Aaron’s Ladies’ Wear had moved into 651. 653 was the Alano Club; Turpin Bros. men’s wear weas at 655, and 657 was Charlton & Morgan men’s wear. D’Allaird’s ladies’ wear was at 665. Purdy’s Chocolates still shared space with Devon Cafe at 675. A peculiar mix of businesses was still at 679 (from barristers to music teachers to a beauty school), although it was no longer identified as the Bell-Irving building in the directory. 681 was McKenzie’s Style Shop (for ladies) and they shared the space above them, probably, with Rae-Bennett-MacKenzie properties (presumably some sort of real estate business). 691 was a men’s shoes outlet; 693 was Renfrews English Shop (for ladies); 695 was Potter’s Jewelers; and 699 was Cunningham Drugs.
Notes
There doesn’t seem to be a consensus on the number of rooms in the rooming house. In a later ad for another auction, it was described as having 37 rooms (Sun 29 Jan 1922). Another auction ad claims it had 24 rooms (Sun 2 Feb 1922). I suspect the higher numbers may have been in reference to the total number of rooms, including kitchens, bathrooms, etc. I don’t think it likely that 37 suites would have fit into three quite narrow floors.
CVA 99-3425: George Paterson working on a bust of actor George Arliss while Paterson was a commercial artist working for Capital Theatre’s art department.
George William Paterson (whose name, more often appeared in print simply as “Geo Paterson” and frequently, although inaccurately, as “George Patterson”) was born to John Paterson and Ann Brown in Port Hope (west of Kingston), Ontario in 1877 [1]. His father was a banker at the time George was born, according to his birth certificate. But that was not the career path that George would take.
By 1901, George seemed to have heeded the call to “go west” and had come nearly as far west as it was possible for a Canadian to go and remain in his native land. By this year, he appeared in the B.C. Directory as a clerk for the C.P.R.
In 1902, George married a Vancouver French-Canadian girl by the name of Jeanne Henriette Delmas (Province 16 Dec 1902).
By 1904, he was clerking for B.C. Messenger Co., and in 1906 he had taken on work, briefly, as a (house, presumably) painter and wallpaper hanger; by 1907, he was a “traveler” for Henry Darling, a “dealer in paints, oils, varnishes, etc.” on the unit block of Powell Street. It isn’t clear how long George remained with the Darling firm, but it’s unlikely that it was much more than a couple of years.
By 1911, George and Henriette had moved to Vernon, where his occupation appeared in the Vernon Directory as “artist”. Henriette was a private nurse for a family. George apparently was principally a sign and show card painter for the rest of their time in Vernon.
In 1916, George enlisted with the Canadian Expeditionary Force to serve in France in the Great War. He remained with the CEF until May 1919. (Oddly, on his attestation papers, he indicated that his “trade or calling” was “Rancher”!) Sadly, Henriette died in October 1917, in Vancouver, to which city she must have moved while George was “somewhere in France”; she was just 33 years old (Sun 12 Oct 1917). According to the 1921 Census record, George lived in Vernon after being de-mobilized. He was the proprietor of a show card, decorating, and painting business. In June 1922, in Vernon, George married his second wife: Jane Haliburton Ogilvie.
New Westminster War Memorial
In 1922, Paterson won the commission to create a Great War memorial for New Westminster. It was designed by architect, Bernard Palmer. The original memorial was 1′ high; from this, it was transformed into a 6’ 6” Plaster of Paris model by Paterson and Alimando Fabri. It was then cast in bronze in Seattle by Leon Morel (this last part of the process was described in the local press as being “merely” mechanical). O. B. Allan, a Vancouver jeweler, sponsored the project (Sun 18 July 1922).
Paterson/Fabri War Memorial at Patullo Bridge location, 1952. Frank Goodship fonds. New Westminster Archives.
The memorial was initially to have been placed in front of the Women’s Building at Queen’s Park. But if it was ever there, it wasn’t for long. The Women’s Building, as with most other structures in the park, burned in a 1929 fire. According to the New Westminster archives, the memorial, for a while, was at the little park overlooking Patullo Bridge, and, finally, in 1954, was shifted to a space in front of New Westminster City Hall, where it remains today. The memorial is typically credited exclusively, and unfairly, it seems to me, to Alimando Fabri.
From 1924 until about 1927, Paterson worked as an artist in Vancouver, with a day job in the art department of Capital Theatre (see the first photo in this post), and also as an art instructor.
Paterson/Fabri War memorial on grounds of NW city hall. Feb 2018. MDM photo.
Historical Tableaux at David Spencer’s
Spencer’s department store (on north side Hastings at Richards) took it upon itself to sponsor a Diamond Jubilee of Confederation Historical and Industrial Exhibition in June/July 1927. It was on the fifth floor of their “new” building (the structure referred to today as SFU’s downtown campus).
“Tableau” isn’t a word that is used often in current English, so a definition seems appropriate. Oxford says it is “a group of models or motionless figures representing a scene from a story or history.”
Vancouver commercial artist, George Paterson, was responsible for creating and overseeing the creation of all historical tableaux in the exhibition. The tableaux which Paterson created were:
The capture of the Plains of Abraham by General Wolfe
Visit of Captain Vancouver to Nootka
Arrival of the United Empire Loyalists in Canada
Laura Secord warning British troops
Establishment of Lord Selkirk’s Settlement
Completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway at the site of the Last Spike
Paterson touching up Jacques Cartier erecting the cross (although there is no sign of a cross!) Province 19 June 1927. The quality of this photo leaves much to be desired, but it is the only photo available, as far as I know.
Many of these tableaux were based on pictures of Canadian history in a book by Charles W. Jeffreys and Henry Sandham. Each tableau was set on its own stage “with life-sized figures against backgrounds typical of the event”. The backgrounds were painted by a fellow named Dan Lade who “also painted all the mural decorations in the room.” From this description and from the photo of Cartier erecting the cross, it seems that the tableau consisted of three-dimensional figures set against two-dimensional backgrounds. Just what the background murals were in the room, which were painted by Dan Lade, I don’t know (Province 19 June 1927). To the best of my knowledge, none of Paterson’s tableaux or Lade’s murals have survived.
There was another tableau created by Toronto sculptor, Miss Merle Foster: the Fathers of Confederation. “Mr. George Paterson was responsible for the tableaux and the arrangement of the Fathers of Confederation group of figures by Miss Merle Foster of Toronto” (Sun 7 Jul 1927).
The exhibition ran concurrently with the painting of historical murals by John Innes and George Southwell on another floor of Spencer’s. The story of these murals is told by Jason Vanderhill at his Illustrated Vancouver blog.
Later Years
By 1930, George was back in Vernon, working as a sign writer. All indications are that he’d given up working full-time as an artist, probably because in the ‘dirty-thirties’, with art as his sole occupation, he couldn’t hope to keep food on the table. The Patersons remained in Vernon until about 1946. According to his death certificate, he retired formally in 1942. In or around 1948, they retired to Saltspring Island.
George Paterson died in Ganges, Saltspring Island March 9, 1955. Jane Paterson died in Duncan in 1968.
It isn’t clear whether George received any formal training as an artist, or even as a sign-painter and show card designer. But, judging from the quality of his George Arliss bust shown above, he seems to have had a fair bit of skill.
It seems to me a pity that George’s artistic contributions to Vancouver and B.C. are today largely unacknowledged.
CVA 396-06 – Vancouver street fair and carnival on West Hastings (looking from Granville St – behind camera, probably from the MacKinnon building at the SW corner of Granville and Hastings – to the intersection with Burrard Street, where the Edward Mahon home was; where the Marine Building is today). 1901. Nakazo Hamamura photo [1].
A street fair was held in Vancouver August 5-10, 1901 on West Hastings Street between Granville and Burrard (it also included Howe and Hornby between Pender and Hastings). Along much of this stretch, there were booths set up where the wares and services of Vancouver merchants were on offer. The booths would also include ads for various products from the wider B.C. (e.g., iron ore from the Kootenays, placer gold from the Cariboo, and coal from the Crowsnest region).
CVA 396-01 – Vancouver street fair and carnival. Presumably, on the trapeze were the Austin Sisters. I’m guessing that this photo is taken facing east on West Hastings from near Burrard Street. 1901. Nakazo Hamamura photo [1].
The Street Fair was promoted by an American, Mr. Jabour. Jabour had sold the fair to various other Western centres (before Vancouver, it would be at Butte, Montana, and immediately afterwards, at Tacoma and then Seattle) and he had the first week of August unscheduled. Jabour’s suggestion to Vancouver decision-makers that the street fair could appear in the City of Vancouver on that week was met with substantial local enthusiasm. The Vancouver bigwigs saw coins dropping into coffers of Vancouver businesses and, with cut-rate rail fares to the city for the fair’s duration, there were visions of vast touristic throngs dancing in the heads of aldermen and merchants, alike.
Belle MacKinnon, Queen of the Fair. Province 6 Aug 1901.
Aside from the booths that would, it was believed, be raking in the dough, Jabour would supply typical ‘carnie show’ elements: Japanese jugglers, Hindu snake charmers, “and other easterners by the score”; black bears, an African lion, a (boxing) kangaroo and an ostritch (Province 1 Aug 1901). And getting headline billing for the event were the Austin sisters “who have performed for some of the crowned heads of Europe” with their trapeze act (Province 24 July 1901).
Crop of CVA Sp P16 – King Charles A. Ross. ca 1896. A. Savard photo.
As seems common in the first half of the 20th century, there was a Queen and King of the event. Belle MacKinnon was the chosen Queen this time around. The identity of the King, however, was kept a secret until the final ball of the fair, held at the Theatre Royal. The King was revealed to be Charles A. Ross, captain of the Terminal City Bicycle Club. Presumably, fair organizers thought that keeping the King’s identity secret would contribute to a sense of suspense which would result in a huge turnout at the closing ball. That dream went unfulfilled; scarcely 100 attended. (World, 10 Aug 1901).
So what was the final verdict on the street fair of 1901? Well, it is difficult to be sure from a vantage of 120 years hence but, I think it would be fair to say, “guarded”.
A report pertaining to the later Tacoma street fair claimed that 15,000 people paid admission on a single day (contrast with the most up-beat Vancouver report of 4000 attending, probably on Vancouver’s best attended day) (World 21 Aug 1901; Province 7 Aug 1901).
And, according to some Vancouver merchants, the organizing committee played fast and loose with the terms of admission. According to the merchants, the agreement was that admission would be 10 cents to get in to see the booths (where the merchants were) and an additional 50 cents to get into the carnival proper – the more amusing (dare I say it, the more interesting) part. Apparently, the organizers went with the 10c/50c procedure on the first day, but during the rest of the week, charged everyone a flat 50 cents to get into anything and everything (merchants booths and amusements, both). This alleged practice led those merchants to hold back rent from the organizers for their booths. (World, 13 Aug 1901). Although the fair was history by the time this minor controversy become public, it would have left something of a sour taste, and could not be construed as positive public relations.
I think this part of an assessment by Seattle a year later, of the Jabour “Street Fair/Carnival” enterprise gets close to identifying the problem with the Vancouver affair in 1901:
“Some of the merchants of the city had exhibits that were good as far as they went, but a stranger in the city can walk up either First or Second avenues and see, free of cost, a hundred fold better displays than were generally presented at the carnival.
World, 2 Sept 1902
In short, the merchants of Vancouver were motivated principally by greed. And, furthermore, it was foolish greed — founded on a misplaced perception that the general public would pay for admission plus the cost of their wares. All that Joe public was really interested in paying for was an evening of entertainment with the Austin sisters or the goofy boxing kangaroo!
Note
Nakazo Hamamura was a Japanese photographer who lived and worked in Vancouver at the time of the street fair (but not for too long after that, it seems). I very much like Hamamura’s photographic ‘eye’ for picturing things that were not often photographed by others in CVA’s collection.
Derril Warren in BC Tory ads for 1972. This head shot is set against a background of labourers – similar to how one might expect an NDP ad to appear. Was this how BC Tories wanted to imagine themselves in ’72?
There are a series of television ads on CVA located here¹ (to find the first of the PC ads, go to the 7.08 minute mark in the clip) that represented another in a long series of attempts by BC Tories to woo voters away from the BC Social Credit Party. Since 1956, the Tories had suffered shut-out after shut-out in all general elections. The party had also gone through leaders as often as they went through facial tissues on election night:
In 1953, 1956, and 1960 Deane Finlayson (1919-2005) led the BC Tories. They won just one seat (but the leader lost his seat) and garnered less than 2% of the popular vote in 1953. In ’56, the popular vote rose to just over 3%, and the first-past-the-post system wasn’t kind to them – they lost their solitary seat. In the 1960 election, the Tories doubled their share of the popular vote (just under 6%), but didn’t win any seats.
In 1963, the Tories under new leader, Davie Fulton (1916-2000), again nearly doubled their popular vote percentage (a little less than 12%); no seats.
The PCs barely contested the 1966 election; there was no leader and they nominated only 3 candidates (they nominated 44 for the 1963 contest). The popular vote was hardly worth mentioning (less than 1%).
John DeWolf (ca1931-2003) took up the Tory reigns of leadership (such as they were) in June, 1969. Premier W. A. C. Bennett (1909-1979) called the election for July. It was scarcely imaginable that the PCs could have performed any worse than they did in 1966, but they managed to do so. The popular vote was hovering close to that of the BC Communist Party!
In November, 1971, Derril Warren (1939-2005) challenged and beat out DeWolf for leadership of the Party. In the ’72 general election, the Tories won two seats and captured over 12% of the popular vote. (To borrow from a 1980 pop tune, it was indeed “Celebration” time for the Tories). Unhappily, though, neither of the two seats won was the seat contested by the leader. Warren tried to get himself elected to the Legislature again in a 1973 by-election. But no soap.
Warren left political life shortly after his by-election loss in 1973. George Scott Wallace led the PCs into the 1975 general election; they would lose one of their two seats in that contest and their popular vote would again plummet to less than 4%.
Derril Warren had, arguably, one of the best minds in BC politics of his day. He earned his B.A. degree from UBC in 1961; graduated from Dalhousie Law School with a Bachelor of Laws; and earned a Masters of Law from Harvard in 1965.
He practiced law for several years, including a stint as General Counsel to the Mannix construction business, based in Calgary. Mannix had served as an incubator for another young lawyer who would lead another provincial Progressive Conservative Party – the difference being he would lead his party to big victories over SocCreds in his province, starting in 1971: Peter Lougheed (1928-2012) of Alberta.
In the early 1990s, Warren was Executive Director of the BC International Commercial Arbitration Centre. He died in 2005 at the age of 66.
The 1972 TV ads had pretty high production values, in my opinion, although the lyrics to the tune that played during each ad were schmalzy:
When we look out on the land we call BC Does the future hold a place for you and me? Will the waters and the seas still be as clean? (later, this word was changed to “blue”) Will the sun come shining through?
There’s a man who’ll take a stand To protect this land we love For the people and the sea and sky above.
So raise your voices, spread the word There is still time to be heard It’s your British Columbia And we can lead the way And we can lead the way.
Male voice-over: “Darril Warren and the Progressive Conservative team — now you do have a choice.”
Note
¹For a laugh, there is a quite creative and well-made commercial near the start of the video (at about the 22 second mark). It seems to be a comedic play on The Creature from the Black Lagoon (ahem – from English Bay!) for Plimley Chrysler Dodge, featuring Basil Plimley (1924-2014). The ad seems to have been made ca1973. Watch it. I think you’ll agree that it’s superior to many of today’s TV ads made for much more moneyed businesses (and, arguably, superior to the ’54 feature film on which the ad was based)!
Str P142.1 – Remains of a BCER street car near the south end of Main Street after a collision with a Dominion Creosote box car. W J Moore. Sept. 30, 1914.
The wreckage shown in the photo above shows part of the outcome of school boys playing around with the brakes on a Dominion Creosote boxcar that was parked on Main Street (as part of a reconstruction job going on at Main) on Wednesday, September 30, 1914. [1]
Shortly after noon, somewhere between 46th and 48th Avenues on Main, one of four boys removed the “dog” which served as the brake on the boxcar (A). The boxcar began to roll very slowly southward on the slight incline of Main at that location. The boxcar that had initially been set in motion, then hit another and it, in turn hit another boxcar. The boxcar that had initially been set in motion by the schoolboy was now stationery, but the other two boxcars were moving, and at a considerable rate.
At 57th Avenue, there were some members of a waterworks gang who were lunching on the side of the road. Seeing what was happening, these men attempted to halt the boxcars’ movement by putting obstacles (mostly spare pieces of wood that they had handy) in front of the cars. But to no avail. The two cars had picked up more speed and simply blew the blockades away.
A map showing the progress of the boxcars as they barrelled down Main. Made from a map within Street Names of Vancouver. Elizabeth Walker.
There was supposed to be a “temporary switch” on Main to keep the BCER track free from any other traffic; that switch was rendered ineffective, however, and the boxcars proceeded to roll south on the BCER track. As the boxcars got further south, the percentage of incline increased, causing them to speed up even more.
Meanwhile, a BCER passenger car was heading up Main, northbound. It stopped at 59th Avenue to pick up a passenger. The motorman, Charles J. Gaell was just getting up speed again at 58th Avenue, when he noticed the oncoming boxcars — on his track!
He stopped his car and began to back up, at first slowly and then violently, at the same time opening the doors and shouting at the passengers and conductor to look out and save themselves. William Price, the conductor, opened the closed door at the rear of the car and was leaning out to see what was coming when the runaway cars crashed with terrific force into the front part of the car.
Province 1 Oct 1914
The point of collision was at 60th Avenue (B). It was estimated later that at the time of collision, the boxcars were traveling at 45 mph. The boxcars kept moving until they reached River Road (Southeast Marine Dr, today) (C), where they finally came to rest.
The motorman was killed instantly and his body was found, badly mangled, two blocks from the impact site. The Conductor’s legs were injured. And all of the passengers, except for a lone Chinese gent (who walked away from the accident, unscathed, apparently), were injured to various degrees. The worst injury was to a young girl, whose leg had been almost cut off in the collision, and needed to have it amputated later at VGH.
At the inquest, the Coroner held Dominion Creosote responsible for not ensuring that their cars were adequately braked.
The Coroner said that one thing about the accident was certain: the motorman had ample time to jump from the street car, but he gave little thought to his own safety, so concerned was he to ensure that his passengers and the Conductor escaped from the car.
Note
This post is heavily reliant on news accounts of the accident. Among them: Vancouver Daily World, 30 September 1914; Province 1 Oct 1914; Sun 1 Oct 1914; Province 2 Oct 1914; Province 5 Oct 1914.
CVA 586-6971 – Senator Grill exterior at Cambie and 25th. Don Coltman photo. May 1948.
The Senator Grill was built in 1947 and opened in the summer of that year. The owners were Joseph W. Brault and John L. Cameron. Brault, a veteran restaurateur, had run an establishment just a few blocks away from where the Senator was (probably B & L Fountain Lunch). Cameron was new to the restaurant game.
1948 ad.
Brault and Cameron appeared to spare little expense on the Senator: architects of the “ultra-modern” building were Watson and Semmons. The furniture was of a “very high quality construction, specially designed to suit the luxury-type interior. In all, the building reportedly cost $55,000 in 1947 dollars (Province, 29 July 1947).
The Senator offered dining room and drive-in/take-away service, with a menu that focused on chicken and steak dinners. Yup, that sounds much like the service on offer by Nat Bailey’s White Spot in the 1940s and ’50s. Small wonder that Nat Bailey wanted to gobble up the Senator before it could become a major competitor.
1951 ad.
I suspect that the Senator didn’t come cheap. I couldn’t find any public references to the purchase by White Spot of the Senator or the numbers involved. But judging by what Brault and Cameron paid for the construction and outfitting the place and the apparent fact that buying the Senator was in Bailey’s interest, it seems probable that he had to pony up significant cash.
White Spot retained the Senator brand with their own for about 3 years. Then, in late 1951, they renovated the place to suit a new brand. The White Spot at Cambie and 25th would become the White Spot Garden Spot. (Jack and Joy Cullen can be seen here at KVOS Bellingham with his “Owl Prowl Theatre,” shilling for the Garden Spot. – in addition to Campbell Motors at 1234 Kingsway and ChanelMaster TV antennas).
A strike at White Spot in 1988, under then-owner Peter Toigo, led him to close two of the Spot’s locations: the one at Georgia and Cardero (in the West End) and the Garden Spot (Sun, 25 Oct 1988). Today, on the site of the Senator/Garden Spot is an office building.
I’m indebted to my friend, Rod Clarke, one of the proprietors of The Paper Hound Bookshop, for pointing out the book on which this post is based. It is called Where to Eat in Canada: 1971 and is a guide to dining establishments in the nation that were judged by the editors (Anne Hardy and Sondra Gotlieb) to be worthy of note that year. 1971 doesn’t seem so awfully long ago to the likes of me and those of my generation (and earlier), but it was, surprisingly, half a century ago!
Included in this little guide are several listings for Vancouver, only one of which is still a restaurant (with a name that is almost the same, today). [1] In this post, I’ll pull out a few of the listings for further consideration.
Hy’s Encore, 637 Hornby
Hy’s Encore (today, Hy’s Steakhouse) is the only one of the Vancouver listings in Where to Eat which is still at its location of 50 years ago. The earliest mention of Encore in the local press was in 1962, so that is likely its first year in business. It was located across the street from The Cave nightclub (and, later, was adjacent to Sugar Daddy’s Discotheque).
According to Where to Eat,
The decor is the same the country over: the wall of books (glued in place), the paneling and the mirrors, all designed to give an air of conventional opulence.
Where to Eat in Canada: 1971, p.153
The crimes against books appear to have been removed [2], thankfully, but I suspect that the cave-like entry to Encore looks much the same today as it did in ’71.
Today’s Hy’s seems to have retained its classic feel of a stereotypically dimly lit, darkly and heavily furnished men’s club. It’s a minor puzzle to me how Hy’s has been able to sustain itself at its Hornby location for nearly 60 years. Probably it’s a testament to quality steak and seafood prepared and served well.
Interior contemporary shot of Hy’s Vancouver. I suspect the brick archway was present when Where to Eat in Canada 1971 was written. There is no sign of any pasted books, however. Photo credit Scoutmagazine.ca
La Cote D’Azur, 1216 Robson Street
Crop of CVA 778-354 – 1200 Robson Street south side 1974.
This French restaurant (which is “french riviera” enFrancais), went out of business in 1995 as it faced demolition that year for redevelopment of the property. [3]
Where to Eat enthused:
Inside the old converted house, the atmosphere is comfortable and relaxed and the service deft and welcoming. The prices are rather high but the food is superb . . . . The menu is in French, and owners, Maurice Richez and Alex Katz, maintain that every dish is a specialty of the house.
Where to Eat in Canada: 1971, p. 151
Sun. 23 April 1976.
Iaci’s Casa Capri, 1020 Seymour Street
CVA 779-E06.35 – 1000 Seymour Street east side 1981. Iaci’s signage is visible at the northernmost house.
In the 1970s, this little Italian restaurant (according to one source, the first such in Vancouver) was located directly across the street from The Penthouse nightclub on Seymour (today the furnished apartment complex called “Level” stands in its place). It was open from 1939-1983.
This may well be the most unusual restaurant in Vancouver. In fact it isn’t even a restaurant in the ordinary sense. It’s the Iaci family home and has been for at least 25 years. The family are all still living in the old house, and meals are prepared individually in the family kitchen.The dining-room upstairs will hold 35 people and there’s a basement room for banquets. Mama Iaci’s kitchen is also in the basement, and there she personally supervises the preparation of food, as often as not doing things herself.
Where to Eat in Canada: 1971, p. 154
This place has been written about at length, so I won’t say anything more, here.
Jade Palace, 252 East Pender Street
VPL 85874U People walking along Pender Street in Chinatown 1972 Curt Lang. The Jade Palace is on the far side of the street about mid-way down the block
Where to Eat begins its listing for the Jade Palace as follows:
The manager of this popular Chinese restaurant is a man with a sense of humour and a taste for large and varied menus. C. C. Sun is his name. He says the C. C. stands for Canadian Club and maybe it does.
Where to Eat in Canada: 1971, p. 155.
The C. C., in fact, stood for Chia-Cheng, not Canadian Club. And, apparently, the Jade Palace became known as the first place in Vancouver that served the ever-popular dim sum.
Where to Eat isn’t a hugely humorous work, but there are occasional sentences that cause one to smile, as did this one in the Jade Palace write-up: “Crabmeat over Chinese greens is a good buy at 2.50, but one suspects the crab may have arrived fresh from the sea after a stop-over in the can” (Where to Eat in Canada: 1971, p. 155).
Schnitzel House, 1060 Robson Street
CVA 306-25 – Schnitzel House Restaurant on Robson Street B. Silk, ca1970.
The Schnitzel House on Robson Street was an institution from 1960. It closed in 1985, moving with the new owner (briefly) to 830 W. Pender.
This is as warm and intimate as an Alpine inn. As the name implies, the specialty is schnitzels and they’re first rate. There are ten varieties on the menu, priced from 2.50 for the wiener to 3.20 for the cordon bleu, which is stuffed with Swiss cheese and ham.
Where to Eat in Canada, p. 160
By 1985, Robsonstrasse was beginning its transformation to Rodeo Drive North.
Concluding Remarks
If you’re interested in viewing all of the Vancouver listings in the guide, I’ve reproduced those in a pdf document, below.
To my surprise, Whereto Eat, remains a going concern. The guide continues to be published; it was first published in 1967. The principal editor is today the same person who edited the 1971 edition: Anne Hardy.
It is difficult to be certain based on the photo by Crystal Schick (Calgary Herald) at this link, but it appears that the Calgary version of Hy’s may still have the pasted books!
Many thanks to Maurice Guibord for his assistance with figuring out when La Cote went out of business.
When I began researching this post, I intended to focus exclusively on Gail McCance, set designer for Theatre Under the Stars, the Vancouver Opera Association and other organizations. However, one of the first sources I encountered was a 1919 newspaper review of a Vancouver production of The Geisha that referred to the scenery being “specially designed by Mr. J. McCance”. I didn’t know a lot about Gail at that stage, but I knew what year he was born – 1924 – and so either the similarity of name and occupation was a remarkable coincidence, or there was more to Gail’s story than I had thought!
John A. McCance
John Askew photo for Vancouver Sun. 1959.
John Alexander (Jack Sr.) was father to Gail and his siblings. He was born in St. Thomas, Ontario to John and Sarah McCance. He married Mary Teresa McHugh in 1910 after moving to Vancouver in 1900. The McCances had four sons and a daughter together: John Bernarr (Jack Jr.) (1911-1974), Larry Hugh (1918-1970), Edgar Joseph (1920-2005), Frederick Gail (1924-2009), and Theresa S. (Archie) MacLagan.
Jack Sr. was a carpenter by trade and, after coming to Vancouver, began to work as a stage carpenter in city theatres. He joined the Lyric Theatre group in 1908 and over the years constructed sets for the Vancouver Opera House, Pantages, Avenue, Capitol, Empress Theatre, and others. There is evidence that Jack’s “day job” – in the late ‘30s at least – was as an employee of Greater Vancouver Water Board, probably also as a carpenter (Sun 28 Nov 1936).
The first press mention I found of Jack was the review of TheGeisha at the Avenue Theatre in 1919, mentioned in the first paragraph of this post (Province, 16 May 1919). Interestingly, Jack would be responsible again for set design in a revival of The Geisha in the city 21 years later (Province 8 Aug 1940).
Jack was stage manager for the pre-TUTS productions of A Midsummer’s Night Dream (Sun 1 Aug 1936) and Hiawatha (Province 8 Aug 1936) at Brockton Point in 1936. [1]
Jack was invited to teach in UBC’s extension department in (at least) 1941, 1945 and 1946 where he provided practical instruction in scene construction and lighting. Other note-worthy people who were on faculty there at that time were Beatrice Lennie (theatrical masks), Ross Lort (scene design), and Vivien Ramsay (make-up) (Sun, 31 May 1941; Province 3 May 1945; Sun 14 May 1946).
Jack packed his hammer away for the last time after building sets in 1959 for the Vancouver Opera Association’s production of Carmen (Sun, 1 Feb 1962). He passed away in 1962.
Larry was Jack’s second son. His first son and namesake, Jack Jr., became a coppersmith who also farmed a bit. Another of Jack Sr.‘s sons, Edgar J. became an executive with the Ocean Cement Group.
Larry H. McCance
Province photo.
Larry had the acting bug. The first mention of him in the local press pertained to him acting in 1937 with the Masquers Guild in Silas the Chore-Boy(Sun 21 May 1937). He later performed with the Masquers in The Golden Lady and Our Town. He also acted with the Vancouver Little Theatre Association in Waiting for Lefty, Of Mice and Men, and Full House.
The earliest TUTS performances were held at Brockton Point Oval, not the Malkin Bowl. Because the acoustics at Brockton Point Oval were poor, the director of TUTS at the time, E. V. Young, chose to rehearse two casts — one that would provide dramatic voices that could be amplified by hidden microphone and another cast that would mutely act out the parts. [2] Larry would play voice role of Quince in the TUTS precursor, A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
In the early 1940s, Larry was working as a broadcaster with CJOR.
By 1947, in addition to acting and broadcasting, Larry had also taken up scenery design (like Dad and youngest brother, Gail) for the [Bowen] Island Theatre Summer Stock Company: “Larry McCance designs and builds all sets for the company”. Plays presented by the company included: George and Margaret, East Lynn, Accent on Youth, Late Christopher Bean, Petticoat Fever, Death Takes a Holiday, and Meet the Wife (Sun 16 July 1947). I suspect that part of the reason for taking on set design for this company was that Larry was under-employed as an actor and possibly as a local broadcaster, hence his decision later that year to move away from Vancouver.
In Autumn of 1947, Larry and his family moved to Toronto. He remained there for the rest of his life with the exception of 1956-1958 when he returned to B.C. to become the Executive Secretary in charge of the B.C. Centennial celebrations (Sun, 6 Jan 1970). In the 1960s, he appeared on early trans-national CBC television broadcasts out of Toronto.
At his death in 1970, Larry was the Canadian Executive Secretary of the Actor’s Equity Association, the union representing theatre actors in Canada.
F. Gail McCance
Gail McCance posing with a model of one of the sets for Madame Butterfly at the Vancouver International Festival at QE Theatre. George Diack Sun photo, 1960.
Gail was born, raised and schooled in North Vancouver (like his siblings). He ‘played theatre’ as a kid and, encouraged by his Dad, kind of fell into set design (Province 28 Jan 1961). Gail’s first job in the theatre was helping his Dad with set construction for A Midsummer Night’s Dream as a 12-year-old in 1936 (Sun 1 March 1963). When he was older, he spent a year in New York working in most of the scenic design shops there. He plainly wasn’t a typical kid.
Gail began his lengthy association with Theatre Under the Stars at Stanley Park’s MalkinMemorial Bowl in 1945 at the tender age of 20. Gordon Hilker, the producer of TUTS from 1940 until 1949, had a tendency, apparently, to hire staff who were known to him. [3] That may go some ways to explaining why it is that Hilker took a chance on such a young man to take on set design for TUTS. He may have approached Jack Sr., and Jack stood aside in favour of his youngest son, or it could be that Hilker wanted a young man in whom he could invest over several years, and Gail was known to him through his Dad, and so seemed a logical choice.
When Gail began with TUTS in 1945, he wasn’t hired on as the set designer. His task, together with Frank Vyvyan, was to construct and paint sets designed by Adrian Awan of Hollywood, CA. Awan had designed sets for the Hollywood Bowl, on which the Malkin Bowl’s design had been based (although Malkin was substantially smaller) (Sun 9 June 1945). For this first season of Gail’s involvement with TUTS, he and Vyvyan would build sets based on designs by Awan for Vagabond King, Maytime, Red Mill, Rio Rita, and ChocolateSoldier.
In 1946, Gail was sent by TUTS to New York City where he spent 6 weeks studying the construction and painting of Broadway shows in their scenery studios (Sun 25 Feb 1946). This was to become an annual venture for a number of years.
The British Columbia Institute of Music and Drama (BCIMD) was a creation of Gordon Hilker and was a creature of TUTS that had as its purpose “to provide free training to promising young talent throughout British Columbia in all branches of the theatrical arts.” [4] The BCIMD provided Gail with a teaching outlet very early in his time with TUTS (1945-46). He was in charge of courses pertaining to scenery construction, painting, and the resolution of electrical challenges presented by different productions.
In November 1946, the Parks Board, concluded an agreement with the federal Department of Naval Affairs to acquire the ‘Old HMCS Discovery’ building on Deadman’s Island. This two-storey building would become the TUTS scenery shop and Gail McCance’s work-a-day home for many years.
Crop of CVA 59-16 – Aerial photo. Pacific Survey Corp. 1959. I believe “Old Discovery” is the first building encountered upon crossing over to Deadman’s Island (left) from Stanley Park.
The first TUTS season in which Gail seems to have earned his set designer ‘wings’ was in 1947: for that season, the local press mentioned that there were “settings by Gail McCance” (Province 26 Aug 1947).
In 1947, Gail began to work for organizations besides TUTS; specifically the Vancouver Little Theatre group, for which he developed scenery for their production of George Washington Slept Here. However, Gail’s fireplace in the play proved to be a little too realistic:
It was the third act and the cue was given . . . acrid dusky coloured real fumes poured from the artificial fireplace. The cast coughed, according to script, but the first-nighters [the audience] coughed too and the keynote was realism.
Province 18 Nov 1947
Charlie Baker. “Coastal Currents” BC’s T. Eaton Co. employee magazine. ca1954. Gordon Poppy Collection. (Baker worked at Eaton’s Construction Dept., too, at this time.)
Gail’s job title was changed in 1948, to “Technical Superintendent”, probably reflecting a promotion. Charlie Baker, who had from 1946 been credited as the set painter is shown in the 1948 season as “Designer”. I take it from these changes in title that Gail was in charge of overall TUTS set design.
Gail married Patricia Mary Gale in 1948.
Gordon Hilker left the TUTS company in 1949 and was replaced in 1950 as producer by William Buckingham. Gail continued as Technical Superintendent until TUTS folded in 1963.
Gail produced the sets for the Steinbeck standard, Of Mice and Men in 1953 at the Avon Theatre (the original Pantages). In 1956, he took on the challenge of set design in the mammoth space that was the Georgia Auditoruim for the Opera Society of B.C.’s. Gilbert & Sullivan’s Iolanthe. And in 1958, he was working in a much smaller space, the auditorium of John Oliver high school for a performance of the Vancouver Ballet Society.
In Autumn 1962, Gail created scenery for the Vancouver Opera’s production of Tosca. It cannot often happen that the scenery upstages the actors in an opera, but that seemed to be the case with this opera:
Although there were many beautiful gowns in the first night audience it was Gail McCance’s set in the third act of “Tosca” that stole the show.
For this creation of his was one of the finest displays of the art that I have seen at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre. Here was the fortress Castel Sant’Angelo set against a morning sky.
In the distance were silhouetted some buildings of Rome and obviously there were more spread out beyond the hill if only we could see over, such was the illusion of distance created by lighting and a large heroic statue set on the battlements.
For me this illusion lasted for minutes, this feeling that we were looking not at a theatre stage but through an archway with the world spread out on the other side.
But the illusion was destroyed by some of the sloppiest acting in the opera.
Province 19 Oct 1962
In 1963, TUTS went bankrupt. The previous year, the Theatre organization as a whole lost $14,000. The only department in TUTS to show a profit was Gail McCance’s scenery department which made $2,960 off an income of $95,814, operating out of rent-free premises (the Old Discovery) (Sun 23 Nov 1962).
Starting in 1964, Gail relied on the Vancouver Opera Association more than before for steady set design work. He had no difficulty filling his days. He designed that year for VOA’s Barber of Seville, La Boheme, The Consul, and The Marriage of Figaro. The following year was likewise busy.
He collapsed from what was diagnosed as sheer exhaustion in 1966 (Sun 9 July 1966). He eased up considerably on his workload after that, producing about one set per year for the VOA ‘til 1973. Beginning in the early 1970s and continuing until his death, Gail painted and exhibited watercolours. He continued to design sets for productions at Marpole’s Metro Theatre through the late 1970s. He seems to have retired by 1980.
In 1997, the B.C. Entertainment Hall of Fame set Gail McCance’s name in a star along Granville Street near the Orpheum Theatre for his contributions to set design (Sun 24 Nov 1997).
Gail described the job of the set designer as “like the ham in the sandwich — necessary for the art of the theatre and the tastes of the public yet hidden from view” (Province 25 May 1963). Gail McCance died on June 16, 2009.
Notes
These weren’t advertised as being TUTS productions, but it is generally acknowledged that they were precursors to the Theatre Under the Stars; TUTS officially became known by that name in 1940 and began holding performances at the Malkin Memorial Bowl in that year.
Richard Sutherland. Theatre Under the Stars: The Hilker Years. A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of Master of Arts. UBC. 1993, p.6
CVA 2010-006.007 View from 1220 Homer July 1967 – E H Reksten photo.
This is a view from 1220 Homer (Yaletown) made by Ernie Reksten on a ‘holiday Monday’, July 3, 1967. The holiday was Dominion Day (known as Canada Day since 1982), and most Canadians should be able to deduce from the year this image was taken (and also from the “100” atop the BC Hydro headquarters) that it was the 100th anniversary year of Canada’s confederation.
Yaletown and the area west of the then warehouse district has certainly changed over the intervening 47 years, but some landmarks are still present. The then-Hydro (now Electra) building still stands (background, right side of image), dwarfing the towers of its two neighbouring churches – St Andrews-Wesley United (1933) and First Baptist (1910). The Ramada Inn is on the site of what is today the Holiday Inn Downtown (1110 Howe). The dark structure apparently on Granville near Davie is the Blackstone Hotel (1176 Granville). The Canadian Linen Supply structure has, fortunately, been retained in all of its industrial art deco glory; the anchor of the building, now, is a grocer. The garage in foreground (of a design sympathetic to Canadian Linen) is the Uptown Service Garage, part of the British American Petroleum family of service stations. The street running in front of Canadian Linen and the garage is Davie and the cross street mid-way up the image is Richards. The lovely street lamps are long gone from Davie, sadly, as are the home and the brick building adjacent to it. I haven’t established, yet, what business(es) made the brick building home in 1967.
Whether you grew up (and remain more comfortable with) the Dominion Day designation or if you are a bit younger and have no recollection of July 1st being anything other than Canada Day, may one and all have a good day today celebrating the privileges we enjoy of sharing life in this nation. Care to join me in a rousing rendition of “Canada” (1967)?
George B. Howard with Ray B. Collins and Charles E. Royal, actors and co-managers of the Empress Theatre Stock Co. (1917-1921). Courtesy: Tom Carter Collection.
George B. Howard (1868-1921) was a well-known figure in Vancouver in the 19-teens and twenties. He got his start in Vancouver at the Lyric Theatre (Pender at Hamilton), moved on to the Avenue Theatre (Main at Georgia) and finished at the Empress (Hastings at Gore). He produced many, many live dramas here and he and his colleagues deserve to be better known in Vancouver today and in the wider world for their work.
Early Years
Howard was born George Howard Bacchus in Norfolk, Virginia in 1867, the eldest of three boys, to James and Virginia [1]. He married Florence Smith in 1890. Howard and Smith both had a desire to be in theatre work, so they teamed up to become the Howard-Dorset Stock Company [1]; Smith took the stage name “Flora Dorset”. Starting in 1898, Howard-Dorset stayed pretty close to home, in West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Delaware. Beginning ca1901, they established a circuit of cities and towns in the Midwest states consisting of Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Iowa and Wisconsin. This continued until 1907, when the company moved out to California and Nevada and then did some performances in Edmonton and Calgary. Interestingly, Howard-Dorset didn’t play Vancouver.
Sometime between 1907 and 1910, I’m assuming, Howard and Dorset divorced. Howard married a Vancouver woman, Theodora Schroer, in 1910 and had a daughter with her in ca1912 whom they named Virginia Betty Bacchus. Dorset/Smith married Lewis Park Kelly of Peoria, Illinois in 1915 (Fort Wayne, Indiana 15 Feb 1915). Bacchus’s marriage to Theodora lasted less than a decade; she divorced him in 1918. Theodora, like Florence, was an actress; her stage name was Betty Jonson.
Lyric Theatre (1908-1910)
CVA 99-4107 – Original site of Lyric Theatre (1906-present) at Pender and Hamilton (known as the Odd Fellow’s Hall – although, I don’t think it hosts the IOOF today). 1931. Stuart Thomson photo.
Howard began his dramatic work in Vancouver at the ‘cosy’ theatre known as the Lyric [2]. The capacity of this space would have been very limited; perhaps 250-300 people. As is visible in the image below, there was no ‘theatre seating’; the audience was seated on chairs at a single level.
From the.1908 Vancouver Elite Directory (Thanks to Tom Carter for directing me to this terrific interior image of the Lyric).
Howard’s company began performing at the Lyric on November 18th, 1907 with the four-act society comedy, “Christopher, Jr.”, with Howard in the title role. This was followed in rapid succession on November 28th by the 3-hour comedy, “Hello Bill!”. Other productions followed with similar frequency. This was typical of the Howard company; they would run a new play every couple weeks. It is staggering to me how the cast was able to memorize lines for a new production so often!
Most of Howard’s productions at the Lyric tended towards the comedic/farce end of the dramatic spectrum [3]. But his company was capable of taking on heavier subjects, too (e.g., “The Young Mrs. Winthrop” and “An Innocent Sinner”). These weightier-themed productions might fairly be called melodramas.
Members of Howard Stock Company at Lyric Theatre [4]
The Howard company finished their time at the Lyric in 1910 not with a single play, but by putting on four of their all-time audience favourites: The Man From Mexico, Father and the Boys, Other Peoples’ Money, and the very popular, Charley’s Aunt. The last of these was perhaps the most popular of all the Howard productions and could be counted on regularly to pack in sell-out crowds.
Avenue Theatre (1911-1913)
CVA 99-121 – The Avenue Theatre (1910-1935) at Georgia and Main. It was replaced by a Standard Service Station in 1925, and today is the site of BC Hydro’s Murrin Substation). 1918. Stuart Thomson photo.
Howard took a break from Vancouver after finishing at the Lyric. He took his company to Alaska (where they had a limited run) and Honolulu (where they spent 3 months). They came back to Vancouver after doing Hawaii where they put on a few old favourites at the Lyric. Then, not to be an idler, Howard took his company to Southern Alberta for a limited run at theatres in Calgary and Lethbridge.
In May 1911, when his new theatre, The Avenue, opened at the SW corner of Main and the first Georgia Viaduct, he started a “new” stock company there, opening with Father and the Boys. Like the Lyric, this theatre was also described in press clippings as being ‘cosy’, but the audience capacity was much greater (World April 11, 1911). The Avenue was estimated to hold upwards of 1200. Unfortunately, construction wasn’t quite finished before the curtain went up:
To the tune of hammering and pounding from the back of the curtain, George Howard came to the front and made a really excellent little speech asking his patrons to be patient with him and all would be well. He also expressed his intention of living and dying right in the theatre if the people of Vancouver would only give him their support.
In 1911-1912, Howard served as lessee and manager of The Avenue. From 1913-July 1917, however, he didn’t have his own stock company in Vancouver and he gave up his position as manager of The Avenue. However, he remained an Avenue stockholder for the rest of his days.
Empress Theatre (1917-1921)
Item – Bu N134 – Empress Theatre (1908-1940), just before its demolition in 1940 to make way for retail space (and, much more recently, for a housing development). W. J. Moore photo.
The Empress Theatre was dedicated in June 1908. It had a stock theatre company for a few years that was led by Lawrence and Sandusky.
By 1917, the Empress Stock Company was co-led by “the big three” shown in the first photo in this post: Ray B. Collins, Charles E. Royal, and George B. Howard. The company and its leadership would be among the most successful ever to operate in Vancouver. Indeed, it was believed by some to be the best stock company on the Pacific Coast.
The sheer volume of plays produced at the Empress [6] and how many of the stock company went on to have film careers (which you can get some sense of by clicking on the links in the lists of members), I find remarkable. Vancouver and the Empress Theatre Stock Company, in particular, was an un-acknowledged nursery for Hollywood in those early years.
In many of the ads for Empress Theatre plays, added to the text can be found “Not a moving picture”, to make it abundantly clear that what were being advertised were live productions.
George B. Howard died from a stroke two hours after playing “Cappy Ricks” on March 17, 1921. It was a sudden and quick end for the 53-year-old actor/manager.
An appropriately theatrical funeral was held on March 22:
Vancouver paused awhile this afternoon while the curtain was being slowly and reverently lowered on the last scene of the last act in the drama of the career of George B. Howard. As the mournful strains of “The Dead March in Saul” floated through the air, and the muffled drum of the B.P.O.E. band heralded the approach of the cortege shortly after 2.30 o’clock from Christ Church, thousands of citizens in the busy downtown section of the city left their places of business, made their way to the streets and stood with bared heads while all that was mortal of the stage favorite passed on to its last resting place in Ocean View burial park.
World. 22 March 1921
But even in death, George Howard took a curtain call.
It seems that he had been on good terms for awhile prior to his passing with Charlotte Sophia (“Dot”) Williams, Percy Williams’ Mom (Percy was the “world’s fastest human” in the 1928 Amsterdam Olympic Games). Whether Howard and “Dot” were romantically involved or not, isn’t clear. “Dot” worked in the Empress Theatre box office, and Howard wrote a codicil to his will, leaving his residence at 196 West 12th Avenue to her. When the existence of the codicil became known, his second wife, Theodora Stoddard (nee Schroer) sued his estate on behalf of their daughter, to whom he’d initially left his Vancouver home. The judge ultimately squashed the suit, as Howard had left Virginia Betty Bacchus very well provided for.
Williams was allowed to keep the home on 12th Avenue and when she died in 1980, her final resting place in Ocean View Burial Park was adjacent to that of George B. Howard (Sun 7 Dec 1922, p.11). [7]
The Empress Stock Company carried on for several years after Howard’s death. But by 1940, live theatre had been eclipsed by motion pictures and in May of that year, the Empress was dead; demolished, just 32 years after it had been built. [8]
Notes
Howard’s companies of stage players were “stock companies”. By the 20th century, I think “stock” had come to mean “house” players in a particular theatre. In other words, the opposite of a “traveling” company.
This Lyric Theatre shouldn’t be confused with another, later, theatre on Granville Street at the site of the earlier Vancouver Opera House.
Indeed, the tag line on Lyric ads during the time of Howard’s company was “If you want to laugh, go to the Lyric”.
Not all company members served at the same time. This list (and others like it) shows all company members over the period treated.
My thanks to Robert Moen for digging up this info.
For the lists of company members, I have leaned heavily on The Vancouver Daily World, The Province, and the Vancouver Sun.
Thanks to Neil Whaley for drawing to my attention “Dot” Williams’ role in this drama.
Ch N42 – Shelton Memorial Christian Church. 1927. NW Corner Cambie at 13th Ave. W. J. Moore photo.
The church shown above began its life as Shelton Memorial Christian Church at 505 W 13th Ave (at Cambie Street) in 1927. It was on the site of what today is the former Plaza 500 hotel complex (the lower, four-storey, retail wing).
Unraveling Denominational Identity
Explaining the denomination of the church that worshiped here is a challenge. They identified themselves as a “Christian” church, but acknowledged in early ads that their denomination was known elsewhere in Canada as “Disciples of Christ” or “Church of Christ”. Unfortunately, that doesn’t help much in identifying where the congregation was on the ideological spectrum.
What can be said of this church denominationally is that they were part of the US-based Stone-CampbellRestoration movement. If you think you can stand any more detail about this bunch, see the links.
For our purposes, it is enough to know that the movement was very non-denominational. At its core, the Restoration movement was about restoring the earliest Christian church with a highly congregational polity (meaning no dictates from a denominational group above it), an absence of creeds during worship, and a desire for ecumenism (unity among denominations). The churches that were part of this movement celebrated the Lord’s Supper (aka communion; aka the eucharist) on a weekly basis (in contrast, Canadian Baptists celebrate communion once a month).
There were three major denominational groups to emerge from the Restoration Movement: Churches of Christ (which don’t use musical instruments during worship; they sing a cappella), the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and the independent (and very confusingly named) Christian Church/Church of Christ churches. (I was a member of the last named denomination while growing up in Alberta).
There was tension between ecumenism and the restoration elements of the doctrine advocated by these groups and the different denominations resolved it differently: the Churches of Christ and the Christian Church/Church of Christ groups resolved it by emphasizing the restoration (or 1st-century church) aspects of the doctrine, and the Christian Church (Disciples) by stressing ecumenism. Shelton Memorial belonged to the last group.
In short (and to greatly oversimplify), I’d say that the Christian Church (Disciples) had more in common with the United Church than they did, say, with the Baptists.
The Early Years (1906-1927)
The First Christian Church (Disciples) in 1906, initially worshiped downtown at Pender Hall (Howe at Pender). There was, apparently, no designated pastor of the church in this very early period. In 1910, they moved to another rental space: Lester Hall (Davie and Granville) and hired a pastor, Rev. N. A. Davis. By 1911, they had moved to 1168 Seymour.
By 1923, they had moved to the East End (Woodland Drive and E. 14th) and hired a new pastor, Rev. Claude V. Stainsby. But Woodland Drive didn’t seem to suit the congregation; it was too far off the beaten path to attract new members. So they built Shelton Memorial. Stainsby submitted his resignation to the church board several months before Shelton was ready to be occupied on the understanding that when the new building was dedicated he would step down.
Shelton was dedicated in March, 1927 and was called “Shelton” in memory of Dr. A. L. Shelton, a pioneer missionary of the Disciples in Tibet, 1903-1922. He was murdered in Tibet by bandits.
After leaving Shelton, Stainsby moved to Fernie where he directed the Sunday School of the United Church there. His day job was as “shop” instructor at Fernie High School. He later moved to Mission, where he worked in a similar job and finally took a teaching job at Ladner High School. He died in 1948 at the age of 59.
Rev. Frank T. Carter was Stainsby’s replacement at Shelton. He didn’t last for more than a year.
Rev. William G. Kitchen (1928-1938)
Province. 31 March 1928. Rev. W. G. Kitchen.
Carter’s replacement was Rev. William G. Kitchen, who came in 1928. He came to Vancouver from Saskatoon, where he had been the pastor at a Disciples congregation from ca1917.
In 1938, Shelton began broadcasting its services over radio CKMO (1410khz).
After a decade at Shelton, Kitchen accepted a call to go to a Disciples church in Guelph, ON.
Rev. G. Hayden Stewart (1939-1943)
Province. 21 Oct 1939. Rev. G. Hayden Stewart.
Hayden Stewart came from Calgary where he’d been directing youth work for Disciples churches. He introduced a new evening service plan. It would be called the School for Christian Living and would frequently have guest speakers — not all of whom would be considered by other protestant churches in the city to be strictly appropriate. One such was Arnold Webster in 1941, then a failed CCF federal candidate and later a successful BC MLA for the same party. In 1943, Grace MacInnis, another CCF member, was also asked to speak at the School. Another speaker was Edna MacCullie, a co-founder of Narcotics Anonymous.
It is clear that, under Stewart, Shelton Memorial was putting a significantly greater emphasis on the Social Gospel. On the other hand, the ecumenism of Shelton was also evident, as they brought in pastoral speakers for morning services from such places as First Baptist Church and their near neighbor, Chown Memorial United Church.
In 1943, G. Hayden Stewart decided to pack it in at Shelton. In the same year, Shelton had a name change. For some reason (unadvertised as far as I can tell), the church became Central Christian Church.
Kenneth S. Wills (1945-1951)
Province. 13 Jan 1945. Kenneth S. Wills.
In 1945, Central Christian (formerly Shelton Memorial) hired Kenneth Wills to take over the pastoral reigns. Wills came to Vancouver from Windsor, ON, where he’d been the director of athletics at a local high school and the managing director of Windsor city playgrounds (Province, 13 Jan 1945). In 1951, Wills returned to Ontario where he took a job as Secretary of Christian Education with the Canadian Council of Churches in Toronto.
G. Hayden Stewart (1952-1957)
Stewart made a return to the pulpit of Central in 1952 and remained there until the church wrapped up its time at Cambie and 13th. It closed its doors in 1957.
Postscript: Community Christian (1957-1960)
But by September, Stewart had started a new church at the same site. It would have another name change: this time to Community Christian Church. The congregation was founded by Stewart on the belief that “people are fundamentally religious.” Said Stewart: “‘We want to give the non-church going people of Vancouver the kind of church that will help them find straight-forward answers to their problems'” (Province 14 Sept 1957).
In March 1958, Stewart created a Community Christian Foundation. The Foundation’s purpose was to secure financial support for ecumenical work to be done through his church.
But neither the foundation nor the church lasted long. By 1960 both seem to have been wrapped up. Stewart went on to start his own Christian counseling organization with a focus on teenage group counseling (Sun 5 Oct 1963). He died in Vancouver in 1998 at the age of 91.
CVA 99-3613 – Canadian Legion – Some of the Contestants in “Popularity Contest” in front of Canadian Legion ‘Celebration’ Offices at 856 Seymour. 1927. Stuart Thomson photo.
Popularity Contest? Beauty Contest?
Shown in the photo above are some of the contestants in the Canadian Legion Celebration Popularity Contest, gathered around the Auburn vehicle that was promised to the winner of the competition.
Although the Legion referred to the contest as being a “popularity” and a “beauty” contest, it was in fact neither. It was principally about how skilled the various women were at distributing tickets in large numbers and in a strategic fashion.
Early Standings: Sun May 9, 1927
In 1927, the Legion sponsored a carnival at the Cambie Street Grounds and the Drill Hall from May 24 (Victoria Day) to May 30th. What was being celebrated was Confederation’s Diamond Jubilee; its 60-year anniversary. In order to gain admission to the carnival, folks needed a (free) admission ticket. The ladies who were in the “popularity contest” would distribute tickets to friends, acquaintances, anyone really who they could persuade to accept a ticket (or more than one) to the carnival. Presumably, the name of the “popularity girl” would be written somewhere on the ticket, and that part of the ticket would be submitted to the Legion. That way, the Legion could track who was leading in ticket distribution and, ultimately, determine who gave away the greatest number of tickets and thereby won the contest.
Sun May 19, 1927
Enrollment criteria were pretty straightforward: Females between the ages of 16 and 21; unmarried; of “unimpeachable” character; residents of Greater Vancouver; and sponsored by a reputable businessman, the chief executive of a fraternal group, a social service, or ex-service organization (Sun 1 April 1927).
Ticket distribution began in early May and continued until midnight on May 30th (the final day of the carnival).
What would “Miss Vancouver” win, exactly? It was widely reported in the local press that she would be given an Auburn coupe automobile (provided by Duplex Sales Ltd.) and she would earn the right to represent Vancouver through a “free trip” to the Inter-City Beauty Contest to be held in September in Atlantic City, N. J. (this was the Miss America pageant).
Sun May 26, 1927
The number of contestants, initially, was 22, but the number enrolled had dropped (for reasons unknown) to 20 by May 9th and to 18 by May 19th.
The woman who would ultimately win the contest and become “Miss Vancouver” was Velma Rogers. Watch how her name bounces around the standings. She begins in 6th place (May 9); then she dives to 15th (May 19); then she made a dramatic move into first place (May 26) and by the day before the final count she was in third place (May 30). The final standings were 1st: Velma Rogers; 2nd: Kitty Salmon; and 3rd: Gertie Preston. It took the counters until 5am to finish the tallying (Sun May 31, 1927).
The contest proved to be about not only having a large number of folks to whom you could go and beg to accept tickets. It was also about knowing when to pull out the stops. You didn’t want to ‘peak’ too early. So it was partly about strategizing.
The Real Contest
Sun May 30, 1927
But ticket distribution, in the whole scheme of things, seems to have been a side-show. The real contest began after the counting was done; the forum was the law courts of British Columbia.
Scarcely had the votes been counted when Mrs. Letitia Salmon, mother of 2nd-place winner, Kitty Salmon, filed an injunction in BC Supreme Court on her daughter’s behalf, claiming that Kitty had been declared the winner, but that after the closing hour, votes and money had been exchanged and that Velma Rogers was then declared the winner. How it was that Mrs. Salmon obtained this information, let alone how she hoped to prove it in a court of law, wasn’t reported. The judge granted her an interim injunction, however, restraining Rogers and the Legion from “handling or dealing with the awards”, at least until June 30th (Edmonton Journal 23 June 1927).
Sun. June 1, 1927
By mid-July, Salmon’s injunction was dissolved and it looked like Rogers would be free to claim the Auburn and her forthcoming Atlantic City expenses. But her legal struggle wasn’t finished, yet.
At the end of July, a new character entered the legal fray: Joseph J. Diamond. He applied for an order that would prevent Rogers from removing the Auburn from Greater Vancouver. Diamond had a written agreement with Rogers, which his lawyer produced in court, which stated that he would be given the car in exchange for his financial aid to Rogers during the contest, in the event that she should win. (Sun 28 July 1927). By early August, the court ordered that the car be sold so that her lawyer could be paid and so that the balance would be available to the court for Diamond’s suit. (Sun 4 August 1927).
A couple of weeks later, and “Queen Velma” (as she was coming to be known in the local press) was on the legal offensive. She had been deprived of her car; there was noway she was going to be denied her right to go to Atlantic City — expenses-free — for the pageant in September!
She threatened to file suit against some 70 individuals who were “patrons” of the Legion celebration, including Mayor L. D. Taylor and Vancouver city aldermen to get enough cash so that she could travel to Atlantic City, unburdened by expenses. Apparently this was the only avenue open to her, since the Legion Celebration Committee was an unincorporated group (Province 19 August 1927).
The 70 didn’t capitulate to Rogers’ threat of bringing suit, however, so she had to actually do so. She sued the 70 for $1500 (including the costs of five evening gowns, sport and afternoon dresses, bathing suits and other apparel) (Province 21 August 1927).
Rogers won the battle, but she lost the war.
It was February 1928 before the suit wended its way though the system — and so, five months after the Atlantic City event, the Legion paid her $1000 for the Atlantic City expenses.
Conclusions
Velma Rogers was married a few months after claiming her $1000. She married Gordon W. Dalgleish, a theatre manager in Nelson. A few years later, Velma was back in Vancouver. She had been made the head of a new hosiery department at Rae’s Clever Shoe Store on Granville Street (Sun 4 April 1934). Not long after that, Velma and Gordon were divorced. Velma married Christopher Beute and moved to California where she worked as an accountant. According to her death notice, during WWII she was employed by Hughes Aircraft and later worked for Samuel Goldwyn Productions. She died in 1996 at the age of 90. (Desert Sun 15 October 1996).
When I was initially piecing this story together, I just assumed that the Legion would have charged for the tickets to the carnival. But they didn’t. And I think that was a mistake. To charge would have meant that the women would have had the opportunity to show off their sales savvy (or lack thereof). And there would have been some money in the ‘kitty’ for prizes. As it turned out, Velma Rogers didn’t seem to win much that she really wanted (her dream of a new car and an expense-paid trip to the New Jersey beauty contest were a total loss). The Legion was damaged by negative publicity. Perhaps the only real winners were the lawyers who represented the parties to the disputes!
When Frank Stuart-Whyte wrote to the Vancouver Parks Board in 1911 asking for a meeting to discuss whether his “Versatile” players from England could have a license to perform at English Bay in the summer, he almost certainly had no clue that he was starting an enterprise that would continue — in one form or other — for a decade and become an institution in many cities and towns in Canada.
First Season: 1911
Stuart-Whyte arrived in Vancouver from England in early 1911 when he was 34. In England and Scotland, he had been involved with the production of “1643”, a historical drama that had played those nations to positive reviews.
The first page of Stuart-Whyte’s initial correspondence with the Parks Board, February, 1911. Note: His photo appears on this letterhead. It is apparently letterhead used with his earlier production in England and Scotland, a historical drama called “1643”. CVA RG. 7 Series B-2, Volume 3, #2.
When he got to Vancouver, Stuart-Whyte didn’t let grass grow under his feet; he soon got in touch with the Vancouver Parks Board with a proposal that he and his company of players perform at English Bay in the summer months of that year. He referred to the company as the “Versatiles”. In 1911, they consisted principally of Stuart-Whyte’s wife, whose stage name was “Miss Zara Clinton” and who was known for her impressions of English male impersonator, Vesta Tilley, and Clinton’s brother, comedian Harry Hoyland. “Harry Hoyland” was also a stage name, evidently; his marriage certificate shows his name as Harry Hoyland Young.[1]
The form of entertainment that would be offered by the troupe was English “Pierrot”. Pierrot seems to have been, in this context, a form of vaudeville: musical numbers, comedy sketches, and brief theatrical performances offered over the course of a couple of hours. A difference between Stuart-Whyte’s Versatiles and vaudeville elsewhere in Vancouver, is that it would be performed al fresco on the beach of English Bay in the summer.
The Versatiles at their English Bay al fresco location. n.d. Bullen & Lamb photo. Courtesy: Neil Whaley Collection
The Parks Board granted Stuart-Whyte a license for the Versatiles to perform in the summer of 1911 for the sum of $150; he would assume the costs of erecting the stage on the beach. The Versatiles had consistently good turnouts at English Bay in 1911.
In June, Stuart-Whyte asked the Board if the Versatiles’ lease at English Bay could be extended for another three years. The Board initially denied this request, preferring to deal with the Versatiles’ lease on a year-by-year basis, but they ultimately agreed (Province 26 September 1912). This proved to be a good move, as the Versatiles through 1916 had strong turnouts at the beach.
Drawing appended to Stuart-Whyte’s initial correspondence with Parks Board, February 1911. Shows initial site of the Versatiles’ stage, SE of the bathing pavilion. (Note: the compass on this drawing is in error. W should be where E is). CVA RG. 7 Series B-2, Volume 3, #2.
A snapshot showing what I think was the Versatiles’ stage on English Bay beach. The orientation of the stage to the beach is different from that in Stuart-Whyte’s drawing, above. It is facing the promenade in this photo. This would put the date of this image between 1912 and 1916. In a letter from Stuart-Whyte to the Parks Board in April 1912, he requested that the stage be built “to face the promenade.” His company had apparently been plagued with colds in 1911 due to “the cold night wind which blew across the stage when it was at right angles to the prom.” (Letter from Stuart-Whyte to Parks Board, April 9, 1912 – CVA). Photo Courtesy: Neil Whaley Collection.
By Autumn, the Versatiles had finished their summer schedule of performances at English Bay. The troupe (Zara Clinton, her brother Harry Hoyland, and manager-husband, Stuart-Whyte) boarded the CPR steamer, Zealandia, bound for the Hawaiian Islands, where they would perform (World, 1 November 1911). They were also scheduled to perform that Winter in California, New Zealand, and Australia.
Second Season – Market Experiment: 1912
In late May 1912, the Versatiles were back at English Bay with an expanded cast that included Emylin Berryman, Will Conley, Lora Churchill, Frank Healey, Will Lochrane, George Bret, Walter Charles and, of course, Zara Clinton and Harry Hoyland (World, 23 May 1912). The English Bay enterprise had another great summer in 1912.
Stuart-Whyte’s Versatiles’ letterhead ca1912+. CVA RG. 7 Series B-2, Volume 3, #2. Stuart-Whyte is in the sharp sign (to the right of the treble clef). I suspect that the person shown within the treble clef is Harry Hoyland and that the woman’s face in the first note at the left is Zara Clinton.
Chilliwack Progress. 2 October 1912.
Beginning in the off-season of 1912, the Versatiles dipped a metaphorical “toe” into a new market; Stuart-Whyte booked the Versatiles into bricks-and-mortar theatres across Western Canada (including the Opera House in Chilliwack, the Sherman Grand Theatre in Calgary, the Empire Theatre in Edmonton, the Empire in Saskatoon, and the Orpheum in Regina). This experiment proved to be a great success and fueled later work by Stuart-Whyte and his company. The main vehicle for the Autumn/Winter tour was a playlet written by Stuart-Whyte called “In the Camp-Fire’s Glow”, a “cowboy musical comedy” set along the Fraser River in B.C.
Third Season – Stadacona Park (Victoria): 1913
By Summer 1913, the Versatiles had established themselves in Victoria in an al fresco setting not unlike Vancouver’s English Bay. They were granted a lease by the City of Victoria to the recently established Stadacona Park. The blue-bloods in the area weren’t impressed with the Versatiles performing in ‘their’ park, but plans went ahead and the general public of the city seemed to soak it up. They would remain at Stadacona Park in Victoria for the summer months of 1913 and 1914.
Regina Leader-Post 2 December 1913/
How did the Versatiles manage to perform in Vancouver and Victoria at the same time? I think the answer is found in a few classified ads that Stuart-Whyte put in Victoria and Vancouver newspapers. He announced that he was looking to “augment his well known companies of London Entertainers . . . .Comedians, tenors, baritones, sopranos, contraltos, pianist” (Victoria Daily Times 12 February 1912). It seems likely from this that a small contingent of Versatiles veterans would seed both the Vancouver and Victoria companies and be augmented by some of the locals hired as a result of ads like the one quoted.
In 1913, Stuart-Whyte added popular Scot, Billy Oswald, and sisters Edith and Harriet Fawn to the Versatiles gang. In the off-season tour, the Versatiles premiered “The Canadian Express”, a playlet depicting the woes of tenderfeet on their first train journey in the Canadian West (Saskatoon Star-Phoenix 22 November 1913). The 1913 tour saw a modest expansion on the tour of 1912. They hit all of the spots of the previous year, in addition to some smaller towns in B.C. (including Revelstoke) and at least as far east as Ottawa.
Fourth and Fifth Seasons: 1914-1915
The Pioneer (Bemedji Minnesota) 25 November 1914.
By 1914, the Versatiles had added to their headliners with Wilfrid Brandon, Fred Reynolds, KItty Clifford, Ida Hart, Thiel Jordan (Victoria Daily Times 1 May 1914). The Autumn/Winter tour featured a ‘re-run’ from 1913, “The Canadian Express” and the premiere of “Scottie in Japan”, a musical comedy “depicting a stranded vaudeville company in the flowery kingdom” (Saskatoon Daily Star 29 October 1914). There was a noteworthy difference to the touring locations in 1914, however: the troupe moved south of the 49th Parallel for at least one stop in Minnesota, in the city of Bemedji. There, “The Canadian Express” became “The Honeymoon Express”, presumably with a few other Americanizing edits to the script to make the train journey more recognizable to a U.S. audience.
In September 1915, Vancouver was the opening city for a new Stuart-Whyte musical comedy, set in a department store, called “The Girl from Nowhere”. “The Girl” was staged again at the Vancouver Avenue Theatre in January 1916 and then in late February, a new production, “Floradora,” was at the Avenue “with a brilliant cast of twenty-five”. Each of these productions opened in Vancouver and then later was taken on the road to the usual Canadian locations. There seem not to have been any American locations on the 1915 tour.
Sixth Season – End of English Bay Versatiles: 1916
Summer 1916 was the final season of English Bay performances in Vancouver.[2] It was an abbreviated season at English Bay, said Stuart-Whyte, due to conscription being imposed in England, causing several of those he would have included in his outdoor cast to be recruited for WWI service (Sun 10 August 1916).
Crop of CVA 99-1223. Shows the Versatiles’ English Bay stage and seats on the beach. ca1916. Stuart Thomson photo.
Autumn/Winter 1916 was notable for a couple of reasons. It marked the start of a string of hit pantomimes written/produced by Stuart-Whyte. And it marked his first production opening in a city other than Vancouver. In September 1916, “Alladin and His Wonderful Lamp” opened in Winnipeg at the Walker Theatre. This production was touted by Stuart-Whyte – accurately or not – as being “Canada’s first ‘old country’ pantomime” (Edmonton Journal 7 October 1916). Zara Clinton, in true English panto fashion, played the principal boy, Alladin; Harry Hoyland played the Widow Twankey.
Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth Seasons: 1917-1919
A scene from Robinson Crusoe. Regina Leader-Post. 26 November 1917.
Autumn/Winter 1917 saw the premiere of Stuart-Whyte’s “Robinson Crusoe”. Zara Clinton played the title role, supported by a cast of 40. Stuart-Whyte “followed the original text in large measure and then added a series of incidents that Daniel Dafoe probably never dreamed of” (Edmonton Journal 3 October 1917). For composition of the music for “Crusoe”, Stuart-Whyte called upon no fewer than three composers: Pierre Bayard, Clive Hamilton, and Sydney Blythe, all of England.
1918 saw the most ambitious touring schedule of Stuart-Whyte’s troupe, to date. In addition to the usual Canadian locations, the 1918 tour included a great many U.S. sites, including: Buffalo, Rochester, Indianapolis, St. Louis, Louisville, Cincinnatti, Streator (Illinois), Davenport (Iowa), Madison, Des Moines, and Sioux City (Iowa). Why did Stuart-Whyte choose this year for such an expanded U.S. tour? There are a couple of reasons, I think. First, the production that they were showing in U.S. cities – “Robinson Crusoe” – was one that was familiar to American audiences. Second, it appears that Stuart-Whyte had a deal with the American theatrical syndicate, Klaw and Erlanger, that year and so had access to a large number of theatres in many cities, probably at reduced cost (Streator Times 27 March 1918). The summer months of 1918 saw the Versatiles at their al fresco location in Winnipeg at Portage and Vaughn. But, although it was advertised as having “the famous Versatiles”, it was, in fact just a single Versatile performing: longtime member, Billy Oswald.
The Autumn/Winter of 1918 saw the Versatiles touring Canadian cities again, this time with the musical “Cinderella”. Zara Clinton played Prince Charming and Sue Parker was in the title role. Other principals included John Barrett-Lennard, Harry Hoyland, Herbert Sydney, T. Clifden Corless, Kitty Arthur, and Blanche Young. This played in 1918 and through to March 1919.
Tenth Season – Final Successful Panto: 1920
Starting in January 1920, Stuart-Whyte produced yet another panto: “Red Riding Hood.” Dorothy Mackay played the title role. Other principal parts were played by Zara Clinton (“Boy Blue”), Johnny Osborne (“Mother Hubbard”), Will Hallet (animal impersonator), and John Barrett-Lennard (“King Cole”) (Saskatoon Daily Star 13 January 1920).
In October 1920, Stuart-Whyte launched “Babes in the Wood”, with Dorothy Mackay again in the title role. Other cast included George H. Summers (“Capt. Kidd”), R. N. Hincks (“semi-wicked baron”), Victor Dyer (“very wicked baroness”), Tom Ellis (“Dick Turpin”), and Mona Warren (“Robin Hood”).
The Versatiles at their English Bay al fresco location. n.d. Bullen & Lamb photo. Courtesy: Neil Whaley Collection
Running concurrently with “Babes” was a revival by Stuart-Whyte of “San Toy: A Chinese Musical” which also toured a number of urban centres. San Toy was a departure from Stuart-Whyte’s spate of panto hits. It was musical comedy, but not a pantomime.
In December 1920, he spun out another theatrical revival, this one Sydney Jones’ “The Geisha”, “a love story of old Japan with an adorable musical setting.” These two revivals seemed to be, in part, vehicles for a number of Stuart-Whyte’s adult actors who had been strong performers in his earlier successes but who didn’t really fit in his juvenile pantos such as “Red Riding Hood” and “Babes in the Woods”. In “The Geisha” there would be 50 actors, including Zara Clinton (“Molly”), Kitty Arthur (“the little Jap Geisha girl”), and Fred Walton.
Eleventh Season – Prince Charming (Not): 1922
September 1922 saw a new musical from the pen of Stuart-Whyte: “Prince Charming, Jr.” (sub-headed in the ads “Girls, Gowns, and Gorgeousness”). It was based loosely on a recent tour by the Prince of Wales. Some of the music in the play was by B. C. Hilliam (Ottawa Citizen 26 September 1922).
The Citizen reviewer was quite critical of this production: ” . . . the composition has no intelligible story which, of course, is not necessary for its success. It has color and girls, one or two good songs, and some novelties in the way of gags and scenic tableaux . . . It has at least five good wheezes [jokes] and a number of others not so good.” (Ottawa Citizen 26 September 1922). And the reviewer at the Montreal Gazette damned “Jr.” with faint praise: “[I]t has sufficient good points to make it, on the whole, good entertainment . . . . On the other hand, the production scarcely has the freshness and vigor of some of its predecessors, particularly insofar as the plot and the musical setting are concerned” (Montreal Gazette 21 November 1922).
Never with any of Stuart-Whyte’s previous productions did I see a “discouraging word” in any review. But it isn’t really surprising, is it, that after 10 seasons of successes, he might lay an egg?
Movie Producer
Nothing appeared about Stuart-Whyte in Canadian press reports for four years after the flop that was “Jr.”
What had become of him?
Evidently, he had transformed himself from a producer of theatrical productions into a producer of movies. In Australia, according to one press source, he produced four films, all of which were financial successes (Sakatoon Daily Star 19 November 1927). There seem today to be records of only two Stuart-Whyte films made in Australia: Painted Daughters (1925) and Sunrise (1926). Zara Clinton starred in “Painted Daughters”. Sunrise is considered a lost film.
Stuart-Whyte spun colourful tales to the writer of a Canadian newspaper piece that was syndicated in various Canadian papers about how he was involved in producing movies in Hollywood, South Africa, the West Indies and India (Saskatoon Daily Star 19 November 1927). But, oddly only one movie title was mentioned; it was claimed by the writer that his name appeared among the “directorial staff” of Douglas Fairbanks’ “Thief of Bagdad“. Today, no movie credits for Stuart-Whyte remain except for the two Australian films.
The Cat Came Back (Briefly)
Edmonton Journal 3 March 1928.
By 1928, Stuart-Whyte had returned to Canada to produce another panto; this one was “Dick Whittington and His Cat”. “Dick” had pretty positive reviews, but I’m guessing that in terms of success that matters – bums in seats – it was found wanting:
(TORONTO) Stranded, though in their home town, four or five members of the defunct F. Stuart-Whyte pantomime, “Dick Whittington and His Cat,” which closed unceremoniously in Brockville [Ontario] several weeks ago, watched disconsolately while the entire outfit, slightly shopworn, was purchased by P. G. Gadsby of Toronto for $400 at the sheriff’s sale.
All one corner of a huge garage was occupied with a miscellaneous collection of theatrical goods and equipment. Seven changes of costume for 17 girls, two changes for four comedians, and large and valuable backdrops, as yet untouched with the painter’s brush, formed part of the collection. The equipment was said by the auctioneer to be worth $5000.
Regina Leader 1 May 1928
Just what became of Stuart-Whyte following the demise of “Dick” isn’t clear to me. I could find no newspaper accounts of later ventures (or even reports as to whether he’d retired), nor could I find an obituary for either him or his wife, “Zara”(Sarah, off-stage).
He died in England in 1947.
I’m very appreciative of Vancouver collector, Neil Whaley, for his treasure trove of ‘real photograph post cards’ and snapshots he has collected and permitted me to show here.
Notes
Late-breaking news: “F. Stuart-Whyte” was also a stage name! He appears in a couple of ship manifests as Frank Hardwick White (1877-1947); and “Zara” as Sarah Nellie White (nee Young) (1882-1950). Frank and Sarah were married in England in 1903. They had a son born 1904 called Geoffrey Hoyland White and another born 1906 by the name of Dennis William White.
In 1936 the Versatiles made a return to English Bay for Vancouver’s jubilee year. The 1936 group was entirely Canadian, as far as I can tell. The cast included Sidney Dean, Frank Dowie, Linda Dale, Frank Vyvyan, Gladys Symmonds, Ruby Chamberlain, Agnes Harrison, Allan Roughton, Hazel McDonald, Lorna McDonald, Gus Dawson, Charles Courtier, and Bertha Strang.
James Clement Welch (1871-1962) emigrated from England to Canada in 1886, the year of Vancouver’s incorporation as a city — and the year of Clement’s 15th birthday. By the time he was in his mid-30s, he would lead what would become, arguably, his greatest legacy: the Vancouver (Amateur) Operatic Society. But that period was still 20 years in his future and nearly a continent apart from where he initially settled with his parents: in the still-tiny, recently-christened Canadian national capital.
Ottawa
Clement arrived on our shores with his parents, Thomas (ca1836-1920) and Mary (ca1843-1925); the family settled in Ottawa. Thomas took on the organist’s job (and for a few years, that of the Choirmaster) at St. Alban’s the Martyr Church (Anglican; today the church is known simply as St. Alban’s).
Daily World. 11 Oct 1924.
It isn’t clear what exactly Clement did for the first few years after his family moved to Canada. Chances are, he did what most teens do: got some sort of training (judging from what came later, I’m guessing that included some accountancy training; I know for certain only that he graduated from Ottawa Normal School in 1894), and likely went through typical teenage rites of passage.
In 1896 (when he turned 25), however, Clement started his first full-time, professional job as a teacher in Ottawa’s public schools. His teaching career spanned 1896-1906 and from what I could find in Ottawa press reports, it appears that he spent most of his teaching career working at the same school.
1895-96 was a red-letter year for Clement, as he would begin a second career (simultaneous with that as teacher) — one that would feed his great passion for choral music. By that year, St. Alban’s Church had scaled back the responsibilities of Clement’s father, Thomas, from Organist/Choirmaster to just that of Organist. The new Choirmaster chosen by St. Alban’s was Thomas’ son, Clement! Two years later, the powers-that-were at St. Alban’s must have been pretty pleased with themselves for this personnel decision. The Ottawa Journal gushed: “[Clement Welch] is a great worker, and the boys esteem him highly — no small thing, mark you, for choir boys are difficult cattle to handle and to get such results as does Mr. Welch needs much tact and a peculiarly endowed temperament” (Ottawa Journal 30 Sept 1899).
Clement married Mabel Burtch (1875-1901) also in 1895. Their eldest child, Velma Ann Maud (1896-1925) and a boy was born to the pair, named Clement Bentley (1899-1974). (1)
Clement’s and Mabel’s marriage was destined to be very brief. Mid-way down a long, bleak column headlined the “Death Roll of 1901”, the local newspaper noted that “On Oct. 5th, Mrs. J. Clement Welch died at her residence…” (Ottawa Citizen, 2 Jan 1902). It seems that Mabel died of septicemia — although the circumstances under which she contracted it are unknown to me.
Taste of the West Coast
In July, 1903, Clement took himself on vacation from a probably uncomfortably hot and humid Ottawa for the mild west coast air of North America, specifically (according to local press clippings) San Francisco and Victoria. No mention was made of him stopping at Vancouver, but it’s possible that he spent some time there, too.
In 1904, Clement married his second wife, Minnie Ernestine Budd (1879-1970). Welch brought the two kids from his first marriage (Velma and Bentley); Minnie and Clement also had a son together, Thomas Kenneth (1905-1988).
Minnie Welch and Florence McLean (a Holy Trinity member) on Bowyer Island, n.d. Cecil Jeffares photo. Courtesy: Neil Whaley Collection.
Clement received a teaching promotion in July 1906 — which took effect in September. He was appointed to the position of musical director of all Ottawa public schools. The starting salary was $900 per year (Ottawa Journal, 6 July 1906). Furthermore, when September rolled around, he received a further promotion to become “relieving principal” and that as of one year later, he would become a full principal of a four-room school. His teaching career seemed to be taking off in an administrative direction. (Ottawa Citizen, 7 Sept 1906).
Interestingly, the September 1906 press report would prove to be the final such pertaining to Clement in Ottawa. Probably during the Ottawa winter of 1906-07 (not the best of seasons in the nation’s capital). Clement decided to pack it in with school teaching there and head for the west coast with his family. They arrived in Vancouver sometime in 1907.
Vancouver
After the Welchs rolled into Vancouver, one of Clement’s priorities was to become connected with a local Anglican church. One of the nearest congregations to where they were living at the time (842 West 7th Avenue) was Holy Trinity Anglican (at 10th Ave. and
Welch and his choir boys at Holy Trinity (Vancouver), presumably, n.d. Cecil Jeffares photo. Courtesy: Neil Whaley Collection.
Pine Street; no longer at that location). Apparently, the Welchs became members there and it wasn’t long before he was invited to become the Choirmaster. As had been the case at St. Alban’s in Ottawa, Clement quickly developed a very positive reputation as leader of the choir at Holy Trinity.
For his first 10 years in Vancouver, Clement was kept busy with music at Holy Trinity and with his non-musical vocation. He maintained a non-musical career (like his teaching career in Ottawa) simultaneous with a musical one. When he left the teaching profession and came to Vancouver, he left it for good, never (to my knowledge) to return to it. When he arrived in Lotusland, he immediately took up an accountancy career. Initially, he operated as a “book-keeper”, presumably freelance, working out of his home. In the 1910s, he served as accountant to BC Market Co.; in the 1920s and ’30s he was accountant to the Vancouver Medical Association Credit Bureau; and in the 1940s and ’50s, before retiring, he was a “collections specialist”.
Vancouver Operatic Society
By the start of the Great War, Clement was inspired to start the group that became the Vancouver Operatic Society (it was known for the first year or two of its existence as the Patriotic Operatic Society) (2). Their first production, in May 1915, was George F. Root’s The Haymakers.
Welch and the Vancouver Operatic Society: The Haymakers, May 1915. Courtesy: Neil Whaley Collection.
Later that same year, they followed up with the first in a string of Gilbert & Sullivan comic operas: Patience (1915, 1921). This was followed by The Pirates of Penzance (1916), and The Yeomen of the Guard (1917). The G&S series was broken by producing Jones & Hall’s The Geisha (1918) and The Country Girl (1920). After that, the Society produced Tanner & Nicholls’ The Toreador (1921) and The Mikado (1922).
For the first several years (1915-22), Society performances were almost invariably held at The Avenue Theatre (at Main and Georgia). However, TheCingalee (1923), The Rebel Maid (1924), and The Arcadians (1925) were performed in the “old” Orpheum Theatre on the west side of Granville Street. Proceeds from the performances of wartime productions went to support soldiers fighting in Europe. Proceeds from post-war productions supported local charities.
CVA 8-07 – “The Geisha”. Vancouver Operatic Society, Avenue Theatre, May 1919.
1926 marked the end of Vancouver Operatic Society productions, although it died with more of a whimper than a bang. There were no announcements of its demise in the press. But, J. C. Welch continued to put up comic operas and light musicals with various other groups.
North Van Operatic Society and Kiwanis and Kiwassa Glee Clubs
A North Vancouver Operatic Society was formed in 1926, with Clement conducting. That year, they performed Florodora. In 1927, Welch teamed up with the Maple Ridge Glee Club in March to produce Iolanthe at Hammond Theatre in Maple Ridge and at the end of the year, partnered with a musical bunch at the YMCA to produce the musical, Tulip Time, for five nights at the Avenue Theatre. In February 1929, Welch again led the North Vancouver Operatic Society in producing Planquette’s musical, Rip Van Winkle at the Lonsdale Theatre. He led the North Shore Operatic Society in 1930 in a production of a pre-Christmas Gilbert & Sullivan offering of The Gondoliers.
In 1941, Welch retired form leadership of the Kiwanis Glee Club (The Province 3 Oct 1941). He turned 70 that year. He spent some of the time during his post-Kiwanis Glee Club years auditing the books of the women’s division of the Kiwanis, the Kiwassa’s and leading their Glee Club (The Province, 7 May 1948). Most of the Kiwassa productions were presented for a limited audience, typically just for Kiwassa Club members.
In 1945, Welch retired from the Choirmaster’s role at Holy Trinity after 35+ years. He led the Kiwassa’s Glee Club from about 1948 until at least 1954. There is no press report of him retiring from the position.
Clement Welch died on January 26, 1962 at the age of 90.
NOTES
(1) Velma was born Velma Ann Maud Welch. She trained for a nursing career for a period starting in 1916, but ultimately left that course uncompleted due to ill health. Later, she spent some time with the Vancouver News-Advertiser and as society editor of the Vancouver Sun. She married Harold Robert Milner Potter in 1919 in Calgary. She spent a couple of years in Banff as a corespondent for a number of western Canadian newspapers. She died in Calgary in 1925 “after an extended illness”. She seems to have taken a new middle name at some point after marrying Potter and became Velma Albirdie Welch Potter. Following a funeral service in Calgary, her remains were interred in Vancouver’s Mountain View Cemetery as Velma Potter. (My thanks are due to Robert of WestEndVancouver for his help tracking Velma).
(2) There was at least one previous Vancouver Operatic Society in the city before J.C. Welch’s group was founded in 1915. A Vancouver Operatic Society seems to have been started in 1895 with the production of Dorothy. That group seemed to peter out within a couple of years, however, finishing with The Chimes of Normandy in 1897. Nothing more of the Society was evident in press reports until 1910, with the production of H. M. S. Pinafore at the Vancouver Opera House. This society seems to have fizzled by 1911, however, after the staging of The Mikado.
There was at least one amateur group that followed on from J.C. Welch’s Society after it died ca 1926. This next Society had service club origins similar to that of the Kiwanis Glee Club. It started life in 1950 as an arm of the Lions Club and was known as the Central Lions Operatic Society. However, before long, the name was changed to the Greater Vancouver Operatic Society. This group seems to have been the longest-lived of all, lasting, according to one authority, from 1948-1992 (although there is evidence in press clippings that this organization endured until as late as 2001).
I’m reliably informed that this story has been told before, more than once. But it was new to me, and so, working on the assumption that others likewise may be unaware of the tale, I’m sharing it below.
CVA 677-591 – Cropped image of Joe Fortes diving into water at English Bay. The bathhouse in question appears behind Fortes. ca1906. P T Timms.
The story has its beginning in July 1905. The wood frame bathhouse shown above had recently been erected at First Beach on English Bay. A letter was written by “The Odd Man Out” to the editor of the Vancouver Daily World informing citizens that
the glass in the windows of the bathhouses (sic) is so transparent that all the “beauty” (?) of the male bathers and the entire angelic form of the female can be seen to perfection by all outsiders on the beach . . . .
World, 11 July 1905
Apparently in the mornings, when the sun hit the changing room windows just right, those inside the bathhouse who were changing were visible to those outside.
More than a fortnight passed, and nothing had been done about the non-opaque windows, so “Modesty” picked up his pen and wrote a letter to the World notifying Vancouverites of the inaction of civic authorities. This writer speculated, very presciently, upon possible future legal ramifications:
. . . . The question arises as to what would happen if the police took action against the bathers. Would the mayor and aldermen or the members of the board of works, or all of them, be responsible? And in the event of a conviction for indecent exposure, would they be open to conviction as accessories before the fact? One can understand how easy it would be for an innocent person to get brought up before the police court; and, in such a case, would not the authorities be the most criminal of the parties? A few hours work and a few pounds of paint would be all that is necessary to put the matter right.
World 24 July 1905
Fully a year passed, and still nothing was done by the City about the bathhouse windows.
And then, a series of events very close to those speculated upon by “Modesty” came to pass:
. . . . [A] young man, apparently refined and well educated . . . was arrested by [Special] Constable Joe Fortes for indecent exposure at the Beach last Friday. The defendant claimed that if he had committed the crime it had been done unwittingly, and was due to the condition of the glass . . . . [The Magistrate] . . . . dismissed the charge. It was now up to Park Commissioners to act. If they desired the present conditions to continue, well and good, but he believed some change should be made.
Province 9 July 1906
By July 12, the Parks Board had finally acted. The exteriors of the windows were given a coat or two of opaque paint. Problem solved.
Imagine the expense (to the legal system) and embarrassment (to the young man unfairly charged with indecent exposure) that could have been avoided if the Parks Board had applied opaque paint back in 1905!
Cropped and edited CVA 1415-195 – The first(?) “Centennial Sue”, a smoke-spewing Chinese dragon and an accompanying Chinese junk at Lost Lagoon in Stanley Park, ca1958
Monster Mash
The 150-foot dragon (“painted in an Indian motif and floating on oil drums”) was installed in Lost Lagoon by the B.C. Centennial (1858-1958) Committee in June 1958 (Sun 19 June 1958). The Chinese junk, which was to be part of the art installation was added in July (Province 11 July 1958). The dragon was named “Centennial Sue”. The dragon was constructed of B.C. plywood and it and the junk were illuminated at night (Province, 19 June 1958).
The monster and sailing junk on Last Lagoon are causing a little embarrassment to the park board. Few people like them and most everybody wishes they would go away — but the board is stuck with them till the centennial committee takes them away. . . . Park superintendent Phllip B. Stroyan explained it this way:
“We gave the centennial committee permission to put up decorations on English Bay and in the Lost Lagoon. The only snag was that we did not know what they had in mind for the lagoon.
“These things appeared overnight. The monster, whatever it is supposed to be, is bad enough. But then this junk appears, with a ‘for sale’ sign on it. Well, we tore that sign off quickly enough, but the rest is there to stay till Frank Bernard — special events chairman for the centennial committee — takes them away.
“I guess it won’t be too long now,” Mr. Stroyan added.
Province 5 August 1958
I don’t understand why it was that the Province was convinced that the dragon was generally disliked. I quite like it. I’m guessing that the dragon/junk installation wasn’t in the Lagoon for much more than two or three months.
Province, June 21, 1958.
Cartoon Cutie
There seemed to be a lack of originality by the various Centennial committees, when it came to naming. In April 1958, it was announced by L. J. Wallace that there would be a “Centennial Sue” who would be the companion to “Century Sam“. These cartoon figures would serve to boost tourism in B.C. (Chilliwack Progress, April 2, 1958).
It isn’t clear which of the “Centennial Sues” was the first, the dragon or the cute/folksy human cartoon character. However, based on the description at the Museum of Vancouver, I’m inclined to put my money on the “monster.”
Centennial Sue. MOV. H2017.41.2. 1966.
Century Sam was a cartoon prospector created as a symbol for BC’s Centennial celebrations in 1958. In 1956 Lawrie Wallace created the idea of the character, while illustrator Bob Banks was tasked [with] actualizing the character. Banks had an extensive career in illustration, working on a range of projects including portraiture, Buzzer transit pamphlets, textbooks, magazines, and work for corporate clients including MacMillan Bloedel, BC Rail, and Air Canada. Century Sam, in his iconic hat, checkered shirt, yellow vest, and chinstrap beard, became a symbol for BC’s Centenaries and tourism in general. Banks also created a companion for Century Sam, Centennial Sue. The figures were used in 1958 and again for the 1966 celebrations of the formation of BC as a colony, as well as the 1967 centennial celebrating Canada’s confederation, and the 1971 centennial celebrating BC’s entrance into Canadian confederation.
Sam seems to have been ‘actualized’ by Banks before Sue was, but it’s difficult to say for sure, and since Mr. Banks has now gone to his reward, it’s now probably impossible to know.
But one thing is certain: the dragon of Lost Lagoon has been all but forgotten.
Aurey, Aury, Owrey, and Awray. I have found all of these mis-spellings of the surname of Peter Alpaugh Awrey (1824-1906). (Oddly, his middle name — which seems to me more challenging — was never misspelled in official documents!) The good folks at the B.C. Vital Statistics branch even managed to get one spelling for Peter (Aurey) and a different one for his wife, Rachel (Awrey)!
Awrey was, before coming to B.C., a farmer in Ontario and later (1880-1886) in Emerson, Manitoba. He and his wife, Rachel, came to Vancouver the year after civic incorporation (1886) to put up their heels after a lifetime of sowing and harvesting to enjoy their retirement. Why Vancouver? Well, it seems that they had a daughter living here: Martha (David) Evans. Perhaps that fact in addition to the more moderate climate of Vancouver served as motives.
Peter didn’t completely relax, though. He was a deacon at First Baptist Church, and later was named the first “life deacon”. He was also on the board of the Alexandra Orphanage.
LP 103.3 – Birds eye view looking down on 522 Homer Street from vantage of Holy Rosary Catholic Church. The home set back on the lot is likely 522; their yard is where the Homer Parking lot would be by 1974. Albert Langlois photo. 1900.
Crop of CVA 778-197 – The Homer Parking lot (shown in between the garage at right and the Victoria block at left) would have been 522 Homer. 1974.
The Awreys lived for most of their years in Vancouver at 522 Homer Street in the long-forgotten days when there were residences all along that street, before there was a wee parking lot on their former lot, and long before BC Hydro dominated the block.
For the last couple years of Peter’s life, the Awreys lived with daughter and son-in-law, Martha and David Evans, at their home at 724 Robson (the south side of Robson near Granville). Shortly after Christmas in 1905, Peter was out for a walk in their neighbourhood when he spotted a construction site and moved in for a closer view of it. In that period, streets did not have concrete sidewalks, but instead wooden boardwalks. The local newspaper attributed Peter’s accidental fall to his “failing eyesight”, but it could just as easily have been unsteadiness due to his age. But, in any case, he stumbled and fell into the excavated construction pit. When he was discovered some time later, he was unconscious, and was moved to the Evans’ home. He never regained consciousness and died nearly 48 hours later (Province, 2 January 1906). He was 83.
Str P229 – This is the south side of Robson between Granville and Howe. David and Martha Evans’ home (and David’s tailor business) would have been two doors to the right of the frame of this photo; just west of the barber shop shown here. Note the wooden boardwalk. Imagine how precarious it would have been to be standing on the edge of a wooden walk when trying to see a (presumably un-fenced) excavation of an undeveloped lot. ca1900.
Rachel passed in 1913 at age 85. David Evans (who formed the first Vancouver brass band) died in 1916 at age 65. Martha in 1948 at age 87.
The Awreys had one surviving grandchild from David and Martha: Joy Evans. The Awreys were predeceased by their grandson, Caradoc Evans, who died in 1887 (at age 10 months), who was the first person to be buried in the Mountain View Cemetery.
Port N173.6 – Mrs. David Evans at her son’s grave (Caradoc Evans) in Mountain View Cemetery. 1939.
Excerpt from 1st Baptist (Vancouver) Minute Book From Its Organization March 16th, 1887 to January 5th 1898. This shows the coming into membership of the Awreys at First Baptist Church on June 28, 1887. (Note: The church clerk of the time misspelled the Awreys’ name, too!), Page 5. Courtesy: First Baptist Church Archives.
CVA 1376-653 – Catherine Pedden. 191-. J. W. Hughes photo.
In the early years of the twentieth century, it wasn’t often that a young woman started her own small business, much less made a ‘go’ of it for nearly 30 years! But that’s exactly what Catherine Pedden did. With help from her sister, Ellen, Catherine’s stenography business endured from 1913 to 1942.
Catherine and Ellen Pedden were two of the daughters of Joseph Pedden and Mary McArthur. Joseph emigrated to Canada from Scotland ca1843 with his family when he was quite young (about 7). He married Mary in 1871 and settled in Middlesex County, Ontario where they farmed. Four kids preceded Catherine and two came in between Catherine and Ellen. Catherine was born in 1885 and Ellen, the youngest child, came along in 1891.
Joseph died in 1910 at age 73 in Strathroy, ON. His passing seemed to prompt the move of Mary, Catherine, Ellen, and one of the brothers to the west coast. It isn’t clear to me exactly why they pulled up stakes in Strathroy to make such a major move, but chances are that it was related to money and the good prospects for making more of it in the relatively new urban centre of Vancouver.
Museum of Vancouver. H2004.94.8 1910s period photo of Catherine Pedden’s office (Catherine, it is claimed, is seated at the typewriter at left).
I haven’t been able to find any evidence of what education the two girls received, but I suspect they went to a secretarial college in Ontario after finishing secondary school.
CVA 1376-652 – Ellen Pedden. 190-.
Ellen seems to have been the first Pedden to make the trans-continental journey in 1912. She was employed by the Canadian Credit Men’s Trust Association and was living at the time at 607 East Cordova. The year following, however, Catherine was in town and was working for herself — also as a stenographer — in an office in the Northwest Securities Corp. building (on the site today known as The Lumbermen’s Building). Catherine and Ellen shared accommodation at 120 Cassiar. By 1914, one of their brothers and their mother Mary arrived in town. While Ellen was still working for the Credit Association, Catherine set up shop for herself as a freelance “public stenographer” [1] in a suite in the Birk’s Building. The following year, another sister, Margaret, was working in Vancouver, too; as a nurse. All of the Peddens were residing at 120 Cassiar.
By 1919, Ellen had left the Credit Association and joined forces with Catherine in working at her small business, which by this time had moved to the Pacific Buidling on West Hastings. The women made it known that they were “public stenographers” operating under the business name of “Vancouver Steno-Typists”. Catherine always appeared to be the “face” of the business.
The Pedden business must have been doing okay, as in 1918 (presumably following the end of Great War hostilities, thus making international steamship travel relatively safe), Catherine left Vancouver for a trip to Asia (HongKong, Shanghai, and Japan). She was there for about two years (Province, 19 August 1920). Much later (after WW2), Ellen took an “extended trip” to New Zealand and Australia, returning via Fiji and the Hawaiian Islands (Sun, 20 August 1952).
Both sisters were actively involved with the Crescent Rebekah Lodge (initially a women’s branch of the Masonic International Order of Odd Fellows; both women and men are now permitted to join).
By the 1930s, the business name had changed slightly to emphasize the stenography element of their services: henceforth it would be simply “Vancouver Stenographers” [2]. The name change seemed to happen about the same time as their final business move to the Stock Exchange building.
Catherine Pedden ad for Vancouver Stenographers in Vancouver Sun. 1 June 1929.
Catherine (age 55) and Ellen (49) Pedden retired in 1942.
In her retiring years, Catherine was involved with the leadership of the Vancouver branch of the Business Women’s and Professional Club (she was a past president) and of the Vancouver Women’s Curling Club. She was also a member of the Vancouver Heights Presbyterian Church (this church merged with the local Methodist congregation to become a United Church in 1925 as part of the church union movement; Vancouver Heights United disbanded in 1973).
Catherine died in 1965 at age 79 and Ellen passed in 1976 at age 84.
Notes
I tried in vain to determine what exactly was meant/implied by the title “Public Stenographer”. How was a Public Stenographer different from a garden-variety stenographer? Perhaps there wasn’t a difference. I even had a look at what American pop culture in the ’30s had to say about this. There was a movie titled Public Stenographer (starring Lola Lane and Buster Collier, Jr. and a small part played by Jason Robards, Sr., father of later Oscar-winner, Jason Jr.) about two young women on the make in the big city who work as stenographers. These two seem to me not at all like my impressions of Catherine and Ellen; the two starlets seem primarily concerned about maintaining their “girlish figures”. I didn’t get very far in the film before I turned it off, but from the way the job of “public stenographer” was portrayed in the early part of the film, my impression is that there may not have been any real difference between the tasks taken on by “stenographers” and “public stenographers”.
I should point out that, with the exception of the court stenographer (which is a very specialized job), the position of stenographer has today pretty much disappeared. My Dad used to teach stenography (or shorthand) at a Canadian college. He points out that, by the ’70s, with the growing popularity of dictaphone machines, the demand for steno and shorthand skills began to fade and that, by the ’90s, many colleges had scaled back or cancelled their steno programs. By the way, for the benefit of any millennial readers out there, I should note that the steno pad is a creature of the shorthand era.
First Baptist Church is going to be closed to the public for the next two years (2021-ca2023) as it undergoes substantial renovation, seismic upgrading and development. It seems to me appropriate, therefore, to offer a stained glass ‘tour’ of First Baptist here.
If you are interested in seeing all of my posts pertaining to FBC (to date), go to this link.
An excellent ‘farewell tour’ of the current church structure (at Nelson and Burrard), hosted by FBC member Kurtis Findlay, was held on April 30, 2021. If you are interested in seeing the recording of this, go here.
The (I am the Good Shepherd) Nesbit Memorial Window: Sanctuary
Nesbit memorial (I am the Good Shepherd) window. MDM photo.
This window was dedicated to the memory of John and Bessie Nesbit by their son and daughter on June 1, 1947. It was constructed in Toronto and installed by the Royal City Glass Company.
Mr. Nesbit came from Berwick-on Tweed, England, in 1888. Mrs. Nesbit came from St. Mawgan, Cornwall, England, in 1890. John died in 1936; Bessie in 1943.
The (He Restores My Soul) Joiner Memorial Window: Sanctuary,
Joiner memorial (He Restores My Soul) window in FBC’s sanctuary. Greg Burke photo.
This window was installed in memory of William Joiner and Lottie (1894-1988) & Maynard (1894-1990) Joiner, all longtime members of FBC. There is a mini-bio on Maynard and Lottie here. William (1865-1964) was Maynard’s dad. He worked as a printer in Scotland, Boston and Calgary before retiring to Vancouver. He served as FBC’s treasurer in his 80s.
The Joiner window was dedicated in the 1990s by the Joiner family. Mark Laughlin, FBC’s caretaker at the time the Joiner window was installed, had an interesting anecdote. He said that one of the donors was a dentist and when the window arrived at FBC, the dentist was offended by what looked like an overbite on the image of Jesus. So the window was returned to the manufacturer (who is unknown, today) for a re-do of Jesus’ mouth. The amusing thing, to me, is that the revised Jesus still seems to have an overbite!
It is mildly surprising to me that both of the windows on the east wall of the Sanctuary are related to the ‘good shepherd’ theme, and it’s unfortunate that no attempt was made to be consistent in the use of pronouns (“I am the Good Shepherd” and “He restores my soul”).
Cross and Crowns: Vestry
The Cross and Crowns (in the “Vestry”, aka, the “Prayer Room”). MDM photo.
This is among my favourite FBC art glass. It was designed by Sharon Wiebe, a member at First. It shows Christ’s cross as the central feature of the image and His crown of thorns appears beneath the cross and the crown of glory above it. Those three features are connected visually with an artful ribbon.
The window is located in the room at the front of the sanctuary on the west side. That room has been traditionally been referred to as the Vestry (probably inappropriately these days, because Baptist ministers do not wear anything like vestments and they probably never used the Vestry room as somewhere for donning vestments). Today it is, perhaps more accurately, referred to as the “Prayer Room”, the room where the pastor and platform people gather before worship services.
Worship Windows: Pinder Hall
Worship Windows (on the east wall of Pinder Hall). Alf Wiebe photo.
This pair of stained glass windows were dedicated in 2008 and were the result of the vision and collaboration of folks at FBC involved in the Choir and other music and worship ministries. The design for the windows was by Mae Runions. Alf Wiebe, who is an FBC member, was the stained glass artist who constructed the windows.
The project was prompted by the death of a Choir member, Stan Grenz, in 2005, who was a singer, guitar and trumpet player and whose ‘day job’ was Professor at Carey Theological College and Regent College. The windows were not intended to be a memorial or tribute to any individual, however. As the brochure published at the dedication of the windows said:
The two windows remind us that worship is a core value of our congregation. The left panel (Inspiration) suggests downward motion and mimics the ‘organ pipes’ in the sanctuary; the dove at the top is symbolic of God’s Spirit . . . . In the second panel on the right (Response), there is the reverse upward motion of believers lifting up their praises to God. The two birds down below suggest community. . . .This window mimics the brass instruments. Creating a horizontal line from left to right are the stylized square music notes proliferating [at] the bottom of both windows.
From “The Worship Windows Project” Dedication Brochure, 2008
Chapel Windows: Memorial Chapel
The First Baptist Church Memorial Chapel was dedicated as such on January 8, 1958 in a service led by FBC’s minister of the time, Rev. J. Gordon Jones. It has served as a gathering space for tiny services — most often for small weddings and memorial services. The space occupied by the Chapel has been part of the church structure at the northwest corner of Burrard and Nelson since it was built in 1911 and was used for various purposes — as a study for the senior minister, a utility room, a Sunday School classroom, and as a denominational administrative office.
Christ the Carpenter (aka “Christ in the House of His Parents”)
Retired FBC Caretaker, Mark Laughlin, standing adjacent to “Christ the Carpenter” window in the Memorial Chapel. MDM Photo.
The window shown above, “Christ the Carpenter” or “Christ in the House of His Parents”, is in memory of Wayman Kenneth Roberts (1904-1955), the Senior Minister of FBC at the time of his passing in 1955. This window, quoting from the Memorial Chapel dedication brochure symbolizes “our emphasis upon the Lordship of Christ”.
William Carey: Cobbler, Missionary and Scholar
William Carey: Cobbler, Missionary and Scholar window in the Memorial Chapel. MDM Photo.
The William Carey window is in memory of Ester Odella Duncan (1906-1957) and is meant to stress “the authority of the Word of God” for Baptists.
John Bunyan: Tinker, Writer, Preacher
John Bunyan: Tinker, Writer, Preacher window in the Memorial Chapel. MDM Photo.
The John Bunyan window is in memory of Esli Powers Miller (1872-1949) and stands for “soul liberty and spiritual freedom” in Baptist belief.
The Armour of God
The Armour of God window in the Memorial Chapel. MDM photo.
The west wall of the Memorial Chapel, when the Memorial Chapel was dedicated in 1958, was empty of any art glass. But in the 1958 dedication brochure, it was stated that:
It is hoped that, eventually, in the west wall of the Chapel, three windows will be installed portraying Roger Williams, the Statesman, Charles Haaddon Spurgeon, the Preacher, and Ann Hasseltine Judson, the Missionary.
Memorial Chapel dedication brochure.
But, as of 2021, at least, this dream for the west wall of the Chapel of some of those living in 1958 has not been realized.
There has been a single window installed on the west wall, “The Armour of God” in memory of Padre James Willox Duncan (1906-2002). The symbols are taken from Ephesians 6:10-18. The stained glass artisan of this window was Jeanette Blackwell.
Other Art Glass at First Baptist
There is other art glass at FBC that isn’t perhaps as noticeable, but is every bit as representative of the care and skill of the makers.
Burrard Street Tower Entry
Burrard Street Tower Entry. Alf Weibe photo. This work was done by Alf Wiebe in 2005 to replicate the windows at this location prior to the 1931 fire which gutted the sanctuary.
Nelson Street Balcony Windows
South-facing Nelson Street (Balcony) Windows. MDM photo. The cross was installed by Alf Wiebe in 2004.
A Window in the Balcony
A Window (with vintage light fixtures silhouetted) from the Balcony of the Sanctuary. MDM photo.
Tower Windows
Tower windows near sanctuary’s balcony. Alf Wiebe photo.
Tower window. Alf Wiebe photo.
Tower window. Alf Wiebe photo.
Tower windows and rosette window near the top of the tower. There are four rosettes in the tower — one on each side. Sharon Wiebe designed and Alf Wiebe installed the rosettes in 2004. Alf Wiebe photo.
The tower windows shown above received extensive repairs at the skillful hand of Alf Weibe. Alf had this to say in email messages regarding these windows:
In 2005 I repaired all of the windows in the tower, and replicated the windows above the door facing Burrard St to be like the windows prior to the [1931] fire. The windows in the tower were all original windows and were falling apart, so. . . I spent the entire summer rebuilding those windows. Finding matching glass was not possible in Vancouver at the time, but I found a distributor of stained glass in Seattle that worked with samples I had and found matching glass. Mark [Laughlin, FBC’s caretaker at that time] found a picture of the church prior to the fire and, based on those pictures, I also designed windows to replace some that had been replaced by plain glass sometime in the past.
[The tower windows] get smaller with each floor of the tower as you go up. Only people familiar with the tower entrance in the balcony would ever have seen these, and only those who were adventurous enough to climb the very steep set of stairs [from the FBC Archives room up past the chimes to the very top of the tower] will ever have seen them. The smallest upper ones are reproductions because all that was left [of the original windows] were fragments of lead and glass.
Alf Wiebe in email messages to the author.
Burrard Street’s “Rose of Sharon” Window
Before: The site of the 1990s-installed ‘Rose of Sharon’ window (near the roofline of FBC’s Burrard Street facing wall). Crop of CVA 790-1657. 1985?
After: The Rose of Sharon Window. Greg Burke photo.
This window is high above Pinder Hall and the Gym facing onto Burrard Street and is known by those ‘in the know’ as the “Rose of Sharon” window. It is round, like the roses in the tower, but this window was installed in the early 1990s, is much larger, and has a quite distinctive appearance. Before the 1990s, the place where the window is now was filled in with granite stonework. By the ’90s, the space was allowing moisture inside and instead of simply plugging it, the church leaders (at Mark Laughlin’s suggestion) decided to fill the round space with art glass. It isn’t known today who the artist was who created the Rose of Sharon window.
Note
*I’m grateful to each of the following for enduring with patience and good grace my questions and requests in connection with the research and writing of this post: Greg Burke, Edna Grenz, Mark Laughlin, Evelyn Loewen, and Alf & Sharon Wiebe.
VPL 8916. Sir John Martin-Harvey (left) and Russian Prince Volkonsky (right) fencing at the Fencing Academy in Vancouver. 1926. Stuart Thomson.
Sir John Martin Harvey had a reputation as a Shakespearean actor on the stage and (later) as a silent film star in the U.K. and in the wider world, not least in Canada (when he was in Vancouver in 1921, he planted a tree in the Shakespeare Garden in Stanley Park. It is still there, pictured below)². The Russian Prince pictured above with Sir John was, however, at the time this photo was taken (post-Russian revolution), a relative nobody.
In an interview given for the Winnipeg Tribune in November, 1926, Prince Sergeie Alexandrovish Volkonsky claimed that he’d been on a world tour, searching for his parents, from whom he’d become separated during the Revolution. According to the Tribune,
CVA 99-1533 – Prince Volkonsky. Passport photograph. 1926. Stuart Thomson photo.
The last trace he had of them was that they had gone to France. After a fruitless search through the country, the prince went to England and there he spent two years. Since that time he has visited every corner of the globe. He arrived in Victoria, B.C. nine months ago from New Zealand . . . . On his way to Winnipeg from the Pacific Coast, the prince stayed near Calgary for a few weeks on a ranch owned by a Russian count . . . . Speaking of Canada, the prince termed it as “not a bad place at all. I like Canada and Canadians,” he said, “and would like to stay here, as it reminds me of Russia.” His ambition is to own a sheep ranch. “I want to become a good naturalized Canadian,” he said. (Winnipeg Tribune. November 1, 1926)
It seems to me likely that while his missing parents may have motivated his travels early on, surely by the time he reached Canada nearly a decade later, his motivation would have become, at least, mixed; that the principal reason for his being in Canada was to put down roots.
This conclusion seems to be supported by remarks in Sir John Martin Harvey‘s autobiography:
Caricature of Sir John Martin-Harvey. Maurice Willson Disher. The Last Romantic. London: Hutchinson & Co., 1948.
Of course, after the Russian revolution, the whole Pacific coast was littered with desolate refugees from that unhappy country. Vancouver was full of them . . . . Prince Volkonski . . . was haunting afternoon tea parties for the bread and butter he could unnoticed consume . . . . He had been in turn insurance agent, bill poster, waiter and actor. When my wife and I met him he was trying to teach the youngsters of Vancouver the elegant accomplishment of fencing — with scant encouragement. He thought that if I would visit his salles d’armes and allow myself to be photographed for a picture-paper in the midst of a bout with him, it might help. This I was delighted to do, and found myself credited by the newspaper with the reputation of being the finest swordsman in Europe! The youth of the city, however, were unimpressed, and the school was shortly afterwards closed. (The Autobiography of Sir John Martin-Harvey. London: Sampson Low, Marston & Co. 1933, pp 435-36).
There is no evidence in Vancouver directories of there being a dedicated fencing academy in the 1920s. (The only sign I’ve seen of there being any school in the city which included fencing on its curriculum was an ad for M. Lester Dancing Academy). But there was a mention of the location of Volkonsky’s fencing studio in the Sun: it was apparently located (albeit briefly, by all accounts) at Robson and Howe in “the Court House block”. (Sun, 20 Mar 1926).
It seems plain from Sir John’s report (and, reading between the lines in the Tribune article, too) that Volkonsky was tired out, hungry, and desperate to establish himself in a new, friendlier nation.
But I’ve been unable to find out what ultimately happened to Prince Volkonsky.¹ I can find no evidence that he ever became a naturalized Canadian (sheep farmer or otherwise). I have not even been able to ascertain where he died and was buried. Indeed, the later years of Sergeie Alexandrovish Volkonsky seem to be every bit as clouded in mystery to contemporary researchers as were his parents’ latter years to him!
Notes
¹In Russia’s Rulers Under the Old Regime (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989), Dominic Lieven accurately notes: “[A]ttempting to trace relationships in the huge Volkonsky family is a nightmare.”
²Martin-Harvey was in Vancouver more than just the once. He was here in 1913 in “The Only Way” at Empress Theatre (Sun, 31 May 1913); 1914 in “The Only Way,” “The Cigarette Maker’s Romance,” and “The Breed of the Treshams” at Avenue Theatre (Sun, 23 March 1914); 1921 in “Garrick,” “The Burgomaster of Stilemonde,” and “The Only Way” at Avenue Theatre (Province, 23 February 1921); 1924 in (among others) “Oedipus Rex,” and “Hamlet” at Orpheum Theatre (Province, 12 April 1924); 1926 in “The Corsican Brothers” at Orpheum Theatre; and in 1932 in “The King’s Messenger” and “The Bells” at Vancouver Theatre (Province, 21 February 1932). Sir John Martin-Harvey died in 1944 at the age of 81.
The plaque beneath the tree planted by John Martin Harvey in Stanley Park’s Shakespeare Garden in 1921. MDM photo.
CVA 677-542 – Harry Solomon’s “New and Second Hand Store (Clothing, Furnishings, Boots & Shoes, Guns, Jewery etc., Trunks & Valises)”. 221 Abbott Street (adjacent to Blood Alley); where Gowon Cafe is located, today. 1906. P. T. Timms photo.
The Process (and Some Findings)
A number of VAIW readers have asked me how I get and develop ideas for my posts. This post presents a pretty typical example, so indulge me as I trace the process:
I began with an image (usually a City of Vancouver Archives photo, as in this case, but sometimes an illustration or postcard from another source). Images are nearly always the initial inspiration for my posts.
I then try to verify the location in the city where the image was made. CVA claimed that the image shown above was made at 233 Abbott. But I found evidence (see later in this bullet) that Solomon’s store was actually at 221 Abbott. Solomon’s shop was, therefore, on the site of what would become, in 1907, the Winters Hotel building (rather than the Central City Mission, as CVA had averred; Province. 30 October 1907). I narrowed the year the photo was made to 1906 (from “ca1903?” maintained by CVA) by consulting local newspapers, where I found an ad in 1906 that was nearly identical to the “fire sale” sign posted over the entry to Solomon’s shop: “Three thousand dollars worth of mixed stock, consisting of clothing, boots & shoes, etc., slightly damaged by water, will sell positively at a great sacrifice. Property of H. Solomon & Co., 221 Abbott St” (Province. 28 February 1906).
I began to track down who “H. Solomon” was. I started by looking for some mention of him in BC vital statistics. Here I found two death notices of men named “Harry Solomon”; one had an online-accessible death certificate while the other didn’t. The Solomon with a death certificate, I concluded, couldn’t be our guy, as he been residing in Vancouver for just three days. The other Harry Solomon (our man, I concluded) had lived to age 45, dying in August, 1925. This would put Harry in his mid-20s at the time of the conflict detailed below.
It was disappointing not to find a death certificate online for Harry Solomon, but there were other avenues to explore for information on him. I turned to newspaper listings pertaining to Harry. There weren’t many, but this search led me to the entertaining story that follows.
I found out more about Solomon in Census Canada records, notably that the death record for him in BC Vital Stats that showed his age at death in 1925 as 45 was probably wrong. The 1891 Census shows an H. Solomon born to F. and M. Solomon in Germany in 1868. He was the eldest of three kids. The thing that convinced me that this record was more accurate than the Vital Stats record was that Harry’s Dad (F. Solomon) had the occupation of “peddler” — not greatly different from Harry’s second hand shop proprietorship.
The story below mentions a gent named Leonard Hornett. According to the news story, Hornett was in Vancouver visiting from his home in Red Deer, AB. Other newspaper clippings established that Hornett was actually a farmer from an unincorporated community near Red Deer called Hill End.
I had a look in VPL’s Historical Photos and UBC’s Open Collections for anything that these institutions might have pertaining to Hornett, Solomon, or 221 Abbott Street; nothing much was gleaned from these latter searches.
How Solomon Schvindled Himself
On Friday, 2nd February 1906, Leonard Hornett, who was a resident of the Red Deer, Alberta area (specifically, the district of Hill End, where he farmed), was in Vancouver on a visit. He was out for a stroll along the streets of Gastown when he happened across a second hand shop on Abbott Street: H. Solomon’s store. Hornett saw a leather-lined shooting coat in the window that appealed to him.
I’ll allow the person who reported on this story for the World to take up the tale:
He went in and asked the young man behind the counter what was the price of the coat. He answered $3. “Here is your money,” said Mr. Hornett, and the bargain was concluded and the coat wrapped up. . . .
Mr. Hornett did not want [anything else] and started away. He had not got far [down the street] when the fun began. The people on Water street had a view of a man in a wild state of excitement tearing along the sidewalk, shouting a mixture of Yiddish and English as he ran, in wake of a peaceable old gentleman who did not look as if he would harm even an enemy unless forced to, much less steal anything. When the flying man reached the “old un”, he made a grab at the parcel he was carrying, shouting as he did so, “Vat a shame. Vat a shame. He would ruin me. Oh! my peautiful, peautiful goat.”
The old gentleman had hold of the string of the parcel and at the first [jerk] it did not break but after a short tug of war during which the air was filled with Yiddish expostulations and objurgations the string gave way and Mr. Solomon, for it was he, fled back to his store hugging the coat to his bosom like a long lost child. In a few moments he rushed out again and pushed $3 into the old gentleman’s pocket . . . . If Mr. Solomon expected Mr. Hornett to come back and raise his bid he was mistaken. Mr. Hornett told his troubles to Detective Waddell and had a warrant for theft sworn out against [Mr. Solomon]. . . .
Mr. Solomon took his place in the box and removing his hat after being sworn he leaned over and proceeded . . . . “You see it was shoost dis vay, chudge,” said Mr. Solomon solemnly and impressively. “I had to go out for a few minutes and I ask Mr. Kattlefat, he is my frent, chudge, not my glerk, to vatch the store for me. Ven I come pack I fount he had sold the peautiful goat dat I refused seven tollar for day before yesterday for tree tollar! I vent after the goat and give the man back his moneys.”
“What do you value the coat at?” asked the court.
“Eight tollars, your honour.”
“And a man with your accent and in your business refused $7 for it?” asked the magistrate, in a tone of sarcastic surprise.
When the laugh subsided the magistrate decided that Solomon was responsible for what his agent had done. The coat was Mr. Hornett’s property. The $3 belonged to Solomon.
“Here you are, lad,” said Mr. Hornett. “It’s been in my pocket ever since; thou might have had it before if thou’d liked.”
Province. 5 February 1906.
The Hornetts and . . . Kattlefat?
Leonard Hornett Sr. and his wife, Sarah Stockbridge, emigrated to Canada from England in 1891. The couple retired from farming in Alberta in 1919 when they moved to Vancouver. Sarah died in 1931; he married a second time, to Edener Smith, in 1932. Leonard died in 1944. It was noted in local newspapers that at his death at age 93, he was BC’s oldest automobile driver (Province. 3 January 1944).
Hornett’s son, Leonard Jr. lived in Vancouver. It was likely Jr. whom Sr. was in town to see in 1906. Leonard Jr. was a job printer in partnership with. Mr. Bolam at that time. He married Beatrice Andrews in 1905 in Vancouver. Later, he worked for Keystone Press. He died in Vancouver in 1957 at the age of 79. Leonard Sr. and Sarah also had three daughters.
I wasn’t able to track down “Mr. Kattlefat” in the vital statistics records and there is no listing of “Kattlefat” in any local newspaper, except for the article quoted above. Chances are that either Harry Solomon wasn’t able to pronounce the name or the newspaper reporters didn’t hear/spell it correctly; the Province reporter had the “frent’s” name as “Candlewax”!
This brief post is a tour of three odd Victorian words and phrases that pertain to marriage and singleness and that were employed in early Vancouver newspapers.
CVA 2018-020.3612 – A pioneer bachelor’s hall, Vancouver, 1890.
Bachelor’s Hall
The photo above shows a bachelor’s hall in Vancouver in 1890. This seems to have been, in the earliest years of the city, a type of doss house. The early bachelor’s halls were frequented by seasonal workers, of which Vancouver had its fair share (forestry workers, especially).
CVA 371-739 – [Exterior of F.W. Hewton’s residence at 544 Burrard Street] ca1903.
I’ve found evidence of bachelor’s halls at: – 935 Hornby St. — Province 19 Nov 1898. – 1041 Robson (corner of Thurlow) — Province 11 Aug 1904. – 544 Burrard (also the Hewton School of Music) — Province. 17 Dec 1906. – East side of 5th (today’s Selkirk) Street, north of Moosomin (today’s W. 73rd) Ave (in Eburne/Marpole) — 1916 Henderson Directory. – 2118 W. 41st Ave (updstairs) — 1920 Henderson Directory.
Most of the above locations were not, I suspect, halls in the sense of the initial photo (with two or more men to a bed). I got the impression that most of these had one bachelor per room.
”Keeping Bachelor’s Hall”
This was a phrase used in Vancouver, which could be a longer way of saying that so-and-so is a bachelor; could also be a way of saying, in today’s colloquial, “I’m batching it for awhile.” For example: “My family are away on a visit at present, and I am keeping bachelor’s hall out at the house” (Province, 24 Feb 1900).
A “Benedict”
A benedict is “a newly married man, especially one who was previously a confirmed bachelor.” An example of this: “Surely Cupid himself . . . [w]ill be present to wish every maid a matron and every bachelor a benedict . . .” (World, 8 Feb 1907).
“Goin’ to the Hymeneal Altar, and We’re . . .”
A hymeneal altar pertains to a wedding or marriage (since this is a family blog, I won’t get into other etymological sources of this phrase). A usage example from the Vancouver Daily World: “Speaking of a doctor getting married, calls to mind the fact that a certain well-known Granville Street disciple of Aesculapius [Greco-Roman god of medicine], who has dabbled considerably in provincial politics, is soon to lead his betrothed to the hymeneal altar” (World. 3 Aug 1893).
Why the author didn’t simply say “A Granville Street physician is getting married soon,” I don’t know. He/she must have been paid by the word!
The Musical Clays. Milton and Amy Clay, and between them, Reginald. Percy is on far left. Harold isn’t in this photo (nor, for that matter, is Gwendoline; she probably wasn’t born when this image was made, but in any case, she never seemed to ‘count’ as one of the “Musical Clays”. Vancouver Sun. September 13, 1952.
Prof. Milton Clay his wife, Amy and their boys, Percy, Harold, and Reginald made quite a splash during their time in Vancouver. Milton, who was an unabashed promoter of himself and his family, made sure that from their arrival in Vancouver, the Clays were widely known as “The Musical Clays”.
The Clay family [1] emigrated to Canada from England, settling in Vancouver in 1905. It was widely reported for many years that the Clays had had a large audience in the ‘motherland’ and, specifically that eldest son, Percy (who was scarcely 7 when they arrived in Vancouver), was known in England as the ‘World’s Wonder’ for his ability to play several instruments (4 at that time; 10 by the time they began performing here). These reports seem to have been largely fictitious, encouraged by Prof. Clay’s public relations juggernaut. I was unable to track down any reports in newspapers published in England of Percy performing there, nor, for that matter, of any of the Clays doing so.
Within a few months of their arrival, the Clays were living in their home, 850 Helmcken Street, which also served as the HQ of the English Academy of Music, of which Milton was principal. According to a later report by Reginald, his father had as many as 110 pupils per week, with the first arriving at 6am and the last leaving at 10pm (Sun, 13 September 1952). Clay’s English Academy would be one of two local institutions (the Vancouver College of Music was the other) that was certified to train students for music exams set by Trinity College, London.
In 1906, Milton launched a “musical carnival and diorama” of the Russo-Japanese War. Central to this was Clay’s 18-piece banjo, mandolin, and violin orchestra and songs with questionable titles, today, such as “Happy Jappy Soldier Man” and “Soldier Boys are Only Toys” (World. 15 Sept 1906). According to the Vancouver News-Advertiser:
“There was not a single vacant seat at the Opera House” for the first performance and that “traffic was snarled [by horses and buggies, presumably, as this was prior to there being automobiles in the city] between Robson and Georgia on Granville by the attending throng.”
Vancouver News-Advertiser 30 Sept 1906 quoted in Vancouver Sun 13 Sept. 1952.
Chilliwack Progress. 30 June 1909.
By 1909, it occurred to the ambitious Prof. Clay that the Musical Clays may find a new and appreciative audience in the northern regions. In the summer, the Clays set their faces north via steamship from Vancouver. They played such places as Whitehorse, Granville (north of Dawson City) and Port Essington (between Terrace and Prince Rupert; now a ghost town).
If Vancouverites had seemed hungry for music, the miners, loggers, and fishermen of the North were starved for it . . . . [T]he concerts put on by the Clays were jammed. After each performance the family was showered with gifts, including a fair number of gold nuggets.
Sun. 13 September 1952.
Once back in Vancouver, Amy became active in several groups noted for their “women’s work”, including the Daughters of England (of which she was president for awhile), the Red Cross Society, and the women’s auxiliary of the Great War Veterans Association. She seemed gradually to be stepping away from public appearances with the Musical Clays as the boys grew older.
Meanwhile, most of Milton’s time, seemed to be dedicated to his English Academy and the musical instruction of other people’s kids, and the presentation of regular “musicales” where his students showed off what they’d learned. When he wasn’t kept busy with the Academy, he had purchased a summer resort property sometime around 1920 that was situated 3 miles north of Horseshoe Bay. It would become known as “Clay’s Landing”.
Around the time of the Panama Pacific Exposition in San Francisco (1915), the earlier craze for the mandolin and banjo was starting to fade and was replaced by a new fad: a love for Hawaiian and Spanish guitars. Reginald was an early convert to the Hawaiian guitar and he and his brothers started a dance band that featured that instrument. The boys appear also to have had a short-lived Saxophone orchestra (Province 16 October 1920).
Percy and Reginald were married on the same day in 1923 — a double wedding. Percy married Bertha Tribe; he indicated on the marriage certificate that his occupation was “musician”. Reginald married Helen Nelson; he showed his occupation as “music teacher”. Harold married Muriel Epps in 1924.
On 28 October 1924, in the Province newspaper, there appeared this shocking notice:
I hereby give notice that I, Milton Clay, 1249 Davie Street, am not responsible for any debts contracted by my wife, Amy E. Clay, who has left her home without just cause. — Milton Clay
Province. 28 October 1924.
It is pretty clear from this that Mr. and Mrs. Clay were having serious marital problems and that Amy had moved out of their home. There was no other public announcement or legal action (such as divorce) taken by either of them.
The next mention of Amy in the local newspapers was on March 31, 1927.
She died on March 29, in her 50th year, at Vancouver General Hospital. Her death certificate is not available online and the cause of her death was not specified in her obituary. The obituary did show her address at the time of death as 2510 Marine Drive East. At that time, Milton was living at #5-1035 Granville Street.
Things went from bad to worse for the family. On December 24, 1927, Milton went missing after heading out on the water with a rented rowboat:
The Vancouver music teacher is believed to have been drowned Christmas Eve about 3 miles from Horseshoe Bay [Clay’s Landing, I presume], which point he left in a rowboat for Sunset Beach. The boat, with its oars and a club bag was later found adrift off St. Mark’s Summer Camp beach, a short distance from the professor’s objective, and it is presumed that while attempting a landing at the small wharf he lost his balance and was drowned.
Victoria Times Colonist. 2 January 1928.
Milton Clay’s body was never found and there was no public funeral, as far as I can tell. The only public statement was one made by someone whose initials were B.B.C. It was published in a local newspaper a year after he was presumed drowned. (Poetry wasn’t B.B.C.’s strength).
IN LOVING AND AFFECTIONATE MEMORY of Prof. Milton Clay, who passed out of my life on December 24, 1927. “There came a mist and a blinding rain and life was never the same again.” — B.B.C.
Province. 24 December 1928.
But fate wasn’t finished with the Clays yet. In 1956, Gwendoline (1907-1956), the “unmentioned Clay” who had seemed to be more interested in sports than music, passed away from breast cancer (she’d been married to Wallace Parker since 1937). And a year later, a few months after he moved to Kelowna after a career as a postal carrier, Percy (1897-1957) committed suicide — by, of all things, drowning in Okanagan Lake.
Reginald (1898-1985), of all of the family, was the only one of the kids who stuck with music as a full-time career. He was a music teacher for many years, dying at the age of 86. Harold (1900-1986) was the last of the Musical Clays. He also died at age 86 after having had a career as a sign writer in Vancouver.
Notes
The idea for this post came from Neil Whaley, who saw potential in the Clays for a good story. Good eye, Neil!
Jewish Museum & Archives of B.C. L.25110 – Harry Halpern some time after he’d left the occupation of junkman. ca 1960.
This is an atypical VAIW post. It consists largely of an extended verbatim quotation from a long-forgotten West End Vancouver newspaper, called the West End Breeze. The subject of the quote is the junkmen of the 1930s who, with horse and wagon, went through the back lanes of the West End collecting and buying junk for the purpose of selling it to junk dealers. These junkmen were, in fact, early recyclers in the city.
The Breeze was a weekly community newspaper, edited by former Vancouver Sun reporter Myrtle Patterson Gregory (1898-1981) and published in 1932-33. Vancouver collector Neil Whaley has the only known copy of the paper, a bound edition from Gregory’s family. He has graciously made his copy of this article available for use on VAIW.
Myrtle Patterson Gregory started the Breeze as a way to work from home while raising two children. The book Women Who Made The News, by Marjorie Lang, says that Gregory was reputed to be the highest paid female reporter in Canada in the 1920s — at $25 a week. When the Sun started Edith Adams Cottage, Myrtle headed it with a staff of university-trained home economists.
”Any Joonk?” Call Europe-Born Junkmen Who Ride West End Lanes Day After Day
“Any oldt clothe’, any oldt shoe’, any oldt bottl’ — Any Joonk? –“
Vibrant foreign voices from Russia, Poland, Germany — sing-song this cry of wares-to-buy along our West End lanes to an accompaniment of scraping wagon wheels and plod-plodding of horses’ hoofs – minor notes in the rich symphony of West End life and so familiar that we lend to them only a subconscious ear, overlooking entirely the possibilities for human interest. Human interest in sordid “junk”? Human interest, even drama!
“Ja, this garten,” a German junkman said longingly one Spring day as he looked at table and chairs under a blossoming tree. “Ja, this garten, it iss like mein home in Bavaria. Meine frau and my little girl are there. I work to bring them here . . . .two years I work . . . . but now,” a despairing shrug, “hard times.”
Depression hits even the junkmen. Not so many bottles. People are not entertaining so lavishly. Not so many old shoes or old clothes — people are wearing them, not selling them. Even things which in the old days they were glad to have carried away for nothing, they are trying to sell to the junkman for as many pennies as possible.
Ben Gold refuses to be downcast. You’ve heard him in the lanes. He cries his “Any old junk?” call as do the others, but three or four times every block he breaks into a curious chant — “Doo, doo, doo-doo, doo-do-o-o!” (After four years, the words are still unintelligible to this writer).
“Gold, he like fon,” explains one of his contemporaries. “He get tired of same old call, so he put “You Hoo Hoo Hoo” after it — for fon.”
Not two or three junkmen, but ten or more, ply their trade through the West End lanes. Imagine never seeing the West End streets except where they intercept the lanes, briefly. Riding all day on a high wagon seat through lanes — eight miles of lanes a day. Four times towards the Park, and four times east towards Granville. Lunches, wrapped in brown paper, are eaten along the way. On short winter days, a red lantern beside the driver’s seat is lighted for the last couple of miles.
Every junkman, or practically so, owns his own horse and wagon. Harry Halperin [Halpern], on the West End “beat” for 2 years, drives “Baby,” who has been traveling though our lanes for 4 years. “Maggie” is another old faithful. On fine days, junkmen and horse start very early in the morning to make their daily round — for the early birds get the best junk!
Any old clothes? A junkman will buy a good suit for $5 and he will sell it for $7.50 at his special market. He pays 1c a pound for rags. Any old shoes? They are worth 50c a pair to the junkman, allowing him to make a small margin of profit. Any old bottles? Fifteen cents for a dozen is the standard price offered to private vendors in the West End and the junkman will re-sell them to the International Junk Company on Main Street, allowing himself a percentage. Earnings of the junkman average about $3 a day, although they may range from a few cents on a poor day to $10 on a lucky day when women are selling their husbands’ old suits.
Bottles are thus started on their return trip to breweries, wineries and manufacturing concerns. Rags become “wipes,” “shoddy” and material for making into fine papers, wallpaper and roofing. Iron goes back to the foundry, and other metals are gathered up for re-smeltering. Rubber can be re-used. So can farmers’ sacks. The junkman is the important link in the reclaiming of these materials.
Among the best known of the junkmen, in addition to Ben Gold and Harry Halperin [Halpern], are M. Hammer, Jerry [Joe?] Sapoznick, E. Schwartz, T. Jacobson, Ben Baltman, F. Kurtz, S. Kurtz, A. Fagan.
Heat does not deter them from the daily grind . . . . nor wet weather.
“Rain?” asked one younger man with expressive hands, “What does eet matter? We mus’ mak’ de leeving!”
West End Breeze. July 8, 1932
Most of the men listed in the article were of Jewish ancestry. There were a couple of non-Jewish gents. Jacobson was probably from a Slavic country (possibly Finland). But, judging from the death certificates I was able to find, most of the others were “Hebrews”. Benjamin Gold (1884-1949) spent 20 years as as a “junk dealer”. He came from Russia. Joe (I couldn’t find any indication of a Jerry) Sapoznick (1897-1973) was also from Russia. The other three junkmen for whom I was able to find death notices were all from Poland. Max Hammer died in 1947 at age 91. Benny Baltman (1879-1955) lived to 75. And Harry Halpern (not Halperin) (1902-1980) lived until he was 78.
This need hardly be said, perhaps, but none of these junkmen lived in the West End in 1932. They lived, principally on Powell, Union, and Jackson streets. In other words, they lived in the East End and worked in the West End.
I was thrilled to find the photo of Harry Halpern shown above at the Jewish Museum & Archives site. And also the following blurb about his early life, published in the Vancouver Sun in the year of his death:
Harry Halpern was born in Poland in 1902, worked as a butcher, then came to Canada in 1930.
” . . . . I saw an old man driving a horse and a wagon. And I said to him, “What are you doing for a living?” He said “I buy shmatas“. That means rags in Jewish, old clothes. He knew I noticed he was Jewish, and I was Jewish. I said, “Listen, can you take me in your wagon, and show me the town?” He said, “Oh I don’t want partners.” I said, “I don’t want to be a partner, just show me the town. I’ll sit with you in the wagon and you go around.” He said, “Okay. But I promise you I’m not going to give you nothing.”
I went with him to Twelfth Avenue, to the lane. And you know what he did? The first thing he said was “Junk! Rags! Bottles!”
I said, “You’ve got to do that?”
He said, “Well, if I’m not going to do that, nobody will know I’m a junkman.”
Mein Gott, I said to myself, I’ve come to Vancouver to do things like that!”
Vancouver Sun. 4 January 1980 (Halpern’s was one of the Sun’s “Voices from the East End”). (Note: This quotation is from the first few minutes of Harry Halpern’s contribution to the Jewish Museum & Archives Oral History Project. For Halpern’s full interview, contact the Jewish Museum & Archives of BC.)
UBC Archives Collection. “Old Bill” Tansley (far right) talking with some of the students on UBC’s Fairview campus. 1920.
William Tansley (1859-1951) was a UBC janitor starting in September 1916, in the period when the school was located in the Fairview district (at what is today Vancouver General Hospital). When Tansley accepted his position at UBC, it was another in a succession of several jobs that he’d held. Doubtless, he didn’t suspect that he would retire from UBC as the Curator of its museum.
A Varied Resume
Bill Tansley was born in England at Stoke-on-Trent, the son of a pottery maker, William Sr., and Emma Stanway. His grandfather sent him to a branch of the School of Science and Art in Hanley, England for a couple of years. His love was art. Unfortunately, he didn’t have too much additional formal training. But I suspect he would say that he had all the training he needed to get along. Much of his later learning was self-taught.
His resume of jobs was varied (Province 14 Jan 1939), to put it mildly:
1870s: Left England for North America. Spent a couple years at Cranford, NJ working as a terracotta worker, a printer and felt maker.
ca1878: Contracted malaria and spent some time in St. Luke’s Hospital, New York. Once he recovered, he shoveled coal and loaded pig iron on the docks at Perth Amboy, NJ. When dock workers struck for higher wages, he returned to NY where he worked as a decorator of toys.
1886: Returned to England, working at Milton where his family was living, as a house painter and decorator. Married Annie Elizabeth (1866-1930). (Bill married his second wife, Bessie, a year after Annie’s passing).
1890: Worked for a greenhouse manufacturer and was later made foreman of the glazing department.
ca1891: Went to London where he worked for a bicycle manufacturer. He lived near the Hugh Myddleton School, which offered university extension classes. He attended classes in French, economics, geometry, and art.
1903: Left England for Canada, settling in Dundurn, SK where he was a house decorator and taught art at night school.
1904: Left Saskatchewan for Vancouver, where he worked in the carriage works of Tupper and Son and later for Lobb & Muir, blacksmiths, on Westminster Ave. (Kingsway). He left that job after he became ill with lead poisoning.
CVA Bu P669 – Group portrait in front of Lobb and Muir Blacksmiths at 2410 Westminster Avenue (Kingsway). ca1906. This is about the time that Tansley was working for them; the gent standing just behind the little girl appears to me to look like Bill Tansley.
1910-1914: He next worked for A. M. Ross & Co. Realtors for a while. Realty was booming, so he opened his own office; his health failed again, and he was forced to withdraw from realty work.
ca1915: Worked for awhile for BC Telephone and BC Electric (doing what isn’t known, but it seems likely it consisted of painting — one of the few themes — and one of Tansley’s loves — among several of his jobs).
’Knight of the Brush and Broom’
In September 1916, Tansley took a job at the recently opened UBC. He was a night watchman and janitor in the Arts/Library Building at Fairview. He assumed this job at the age of 57 — an age at which most men would be thinking of retirement.
William Tansley pictured in UBC’s Third Annual, 1918. Tansley was sometimes referred to as a ‘Knight of the Brush and Broom’ and on other occasions as ‘Curator of the Dustpan’. UBC Archives.
In 1917, he went onto the day shift. That meant that he could have more contact with the students (and get a decent night’s rest)!
“I enjoy the association with the students here,” he said in answer to a question. “I like the conversation and the discussions which university men often promote when they get together, and I have made many valuable friendships in the course of my work.”
The Province. 4 March 1922.
It seems the sentiment was mutual. Male students referred to him, affectionately, as “Old Bill”. Female students reportedly called him “Mr. Tansley”, with equal regard. At the end of the 1920-21 session, the students took up a collection for Tansley, presenting him with a bucketful of money. He invested the cash gift in a set of books called Original Sources (The Province. 4 March 1922).
Curator of Nascent Museum of Anthropology
In 1927, Dr. Frank Burnett donated his sizable collection of materials from the South Seas to UBC and Tansley was made the curator of the collection. How did Tansley and Burnett connect?
Mr. Tansley had first met Dr. Frank Burnett when he arrived [in Vancouver] from Dundurn [SK] with a letter of introduction to the firm of Burnett, Horne & Co. [Insurance Brokers]. When the doctor left his valuable collection of native curiosities to the University in 1927 what was more logical than that his old friend “Bill” should be placed in charge of it.
The Province. 14 January 1939.
CVA Out P647 – Dr. Frank Burnett surrounded by his collection of South Seas’ artifacts. 192-.
The Burnett Collection was established on the first floor of the Main Library and was formally known as the Burnett Ethnological Museum (sometimes referred to casually as the UBC Museum) The Burnett Collection would later form the core of the Museum of Anthropology (MOA). It consisted of “curious relics, rated as the most complete representative Polynesian collection in the world . . . . Among the exhibits are figures of Polynesian gods, native implements, several skulls, and samples of native dress” (UBC Student Handbook: 1929, p. 73).
Tansley made his own contribution to the UBC Museum. He offered a scrapbook compiled during each of his years at UBC (1916-33) showing newspaper and other information pertaining to students, former students and events at the University over the years. I see that his scrapbook and one of “Old Bill’s” paintings are now part of the William Tansley fonds at the UBC Archives.
In 1941, Tansley retired from UBC after 14 years as curator and 11 years as janitor. He was 83. He died almost a decade later at 92. He was survived by his second wife, Bessie Cox (1884-1963).
CVA 99-4059 – Crowd watching baseball results from the block on Pender St between Cambie and Beatty. 1931. Stuart Thomson.
The image shown above was encountered by me yesterday when I was researching a forthcoming post. When I saw the photo, I noticed that CVA’s description of the photo’s locale was wrong. It wasn’t “Hastings Street and Beatty Street” as they claimed [1]. It was actually the block on Pender between Cambie and Beatty. The buildings to the left in the image show those of the former City Hospital which, by 1931, was the site of the City’s “relief offices” (where today there is a parkade at the corner of Cambie at Pender). This is not an often-photographed block.
Playograph
Later, it occurred to me to ask myself where exactly the crowd was looking? If they were accurately described by CVA as “watching baseball results” versus simply “listening” to them over some sort of public address system, then what were they watching? And where were they looking ?
Starting with the World Series of 1925 and continuing for most years after that through World Series 1931, there was an American invention in town called the Playograph. For the first few years (1925-1930), this was the exclusive domain in Vancouver of the Province newspaper. Only in 1931 did the Sun get on the bandwagon and get a Playograph of its own.
The Playograph (shown below) appears to our modern eyes to be a pretty banal thing — basically a scoreboard.
Province 6 Oct 1929.
The playograph is one of the latest devices in baseball boards. It shows every play from the time the ball leaves the pitcher’s hands until an “out” is registered or a run scored. It pictures the progress of a runner once he reaches first base, and also gives the running box score.
The Province, 5 October 1925
The Playograph was part of a system that included a special leased telegraph wire to the field in which the game was being played; it also had an audio component. A “baseball expert” would call the game for the fans that gathered before the Playograph board. And they would watch as hitters scored runs. And this audio information would be supplied in up-to-the-minute fashion, almost as quickly as it was seen by folks who were able to attend the actual ball game!
What Held the Crowd’s Attention?
But where were Vancouver ball fans looking in the image above? Where was the Playograph located in 1931?
CVA Str N164. Crop of Lion gargoyle at 2nd story of Edgett wing, Province building, Pender Street view.
This is where my brain needed some adjusting.[2] Partly because this city block was infrequently photographed in the 1920s and ’30s, I had a skewed notion of where the Province (and Sun) offices were located. When I think about the Province office, I typically think of it as the 7-storey building at Hastings and Cambie (shown here just above the cenotaph) at the site now occupied by the Vancouver Film School (aka the Carter Cotton building). It is easy to forget that the Provincealso occupied printing offices in the “Edgett wing” — shown here at the 420 Cambie entrance. What I overlooked, however, is that the Edgett wing is a three-dimensional structure with facings on Pender Street, too!
The Playograph was on an upper storey of the Pender side of the Edgett wing (see photos below; note, in particular, the lion gargoyles in common in the photo of the Province Playograph and the Edgett wing. That is where most of the crowd was looking — northwest toward the Province Playograph on the Pender Street wall of the Edgett wing.
The Province Playograph mechanism mounted on the Pender Street side of the Edgett Wing of the Province Building at Pender and Cambie. (Note the lion gargoyles). The Province. 6 October 1925.
Str N164 – View of Pender Street east of Cambie Street, showing the Bekins Tower (formerly the World Tower and ultimately to become the Sun Tower). Note the Edgett Wing (Pender St side) of the Province building at left foreground. Note also the Sun building on the north side of Pender across the street from Bekins Tower. 1927. W J Moore.
What About Those Looking North?
Some people in the crowd (mainly those who appear in the 99-4060 photo below) appear to be looking, principally, to the north (versus the northwest). What was going on there?
Crop of CVA Str N164 showing the Sun building on north side of Pender (across the street from the Tower, which would become in 1937 its primary HQ). The signage locates “The Sun” — where the Pendera apts are located today,
Once again, I needed to adjust my brain to the layout of the city in the latter 1920s and early 1930s. When I saw that the Sun jumped onto the Playograph bandwagon in 1931, I assumed that the Sun was located in the Sun Tower (aka, World Tower, aka Bekins Tower). But I was mistaken. As you can see in the 1927 image above, it was the Bekins Tower in the 1920s. The Sun didn’t become the principal tenant of the Tower until 1937, substantially after the Playograph had become a memory in Vancouver.
Where was the Sun office in the late 1920s and early ’30s? Its building is just visible in Str 164 in the left, middle-ground, two buildings west of the Lotus Hotel (where the Pendera residences are today). It is clearer in the crop of that image shown at the right.
So those in the crowd who appear to be looking north were looking at the Sun Playograph which was on the Sun building, located almost directly across Pender from the Tower.
Playograph’s Passing
The Playograph had limited utility and attractiveness to Vancouver ball fans and 1931 seems to have been the final year it was featured by either the Province or the Sun. It seems that radio broadcasts of baseball games had become commonplace and, with that, the appeal began to fade of gathering with your neighbours at a central location to watch changes to a glorified scoreboard. It was the first step towards the isolationism that would eventually come with television.
But in the early years of the Depression, and a good two decades before televisions were available for purchase, the Playograph contributed to the entertainment of thousands of Vancouver ball fans.
In conclusion, I’m reminded of another American export (in addition to the Playograph device and the World Series of baseball). Radio journalist, Paul Harvey, used to wrap up his syndicated broadcasts on our local radio station when I was growing up in the ‘70s with a simple sentence that seems apt here: “And that’s . . . the rest of the story.”
CVA 99-4060 – Crowd watching baseball results. Camera facing east and south down Pender and Beatty. The Bekins Tower is the structure at corner of Pender at Beatty. 1931 Stuart Thomson.
Notes
Hastings and Beatty is an impossible address. Beatty dead-ends at Pender; it doesn’t intersect with Hastings.
I am indebted to Tom Carter for his help adjusting my thinking about the urban landscape during these years. He lives in the neighbourhood of the World/Bekins/Sun Tower and was very helpful in straightening out my understanding of where the Sun and Province offices were in 1925-31.
First Baptist Church (FBC) had, as one of its early objectives, the planting of daughter churches in the neighbourhoods of the city as it gradually grew. The focus of this post is on the churches of that ‘brood’ and, specifically, the buildings they occupied over the course of their lives. I’m not including the history of First Baptist’s buildings in this post, as I have pretty thoroughly dealt with FBC’s history elsewhere in multiple posts of this blog.
The content in this post was first presented by me at a Vancouver Postcard Club meeting in June 2018. Although the format is different (a post versus a PowerPoint presentation), the information is largely the same.
First Born: Mount Pleasant Baptist
Mount Pleasant Baptist Church (MPBC) had initial, temporary church homes on 2nd Ave (1890) and in the Good Templars Hall (1891). On May 10, 1891, several members were dismissed[1] from the ‘mother’ church, FBC, so they could form the nucleus of MPBC. FBC offered Mount Pleasant Baptist $200/yr (for how long isn’t clear) and a pulpit chair and a pulpit Bible to support the new church’s first pastor, Rev. A. B. Lorimer.
Building 1 (1904-1908): 7th Avenue near Quebec Street
The first building would be on 7th Avenue, adjacent to what, by 1911, would be the Mt Stephen apartment block (today called Quebec Manor). In 1908, this building was sold to the Salvation Army.
PAN N161A – Crop of Mount Pleasant from the Lee Block, Broadway. Mount Pleasant Baptist’s Building 1 is located to the right of the Mt. Stephen apartment block. 1913. W. J. Moore.
Building 2 (1908-1910): Kingsway near Main
MPBC bought their second building from the local Presbyterians. This structure was at 2340 Westminster Road (now Kingsway near Main); this is the site, today, of Mt Pleasant Community Centre and the branch library of VPL. MPBC was at this location for just a couple of years.
Ch P62 – Boys’ Brigade and Band in front of Mount Pleasant Presbyterian Church at 2340 Westminster Road (Main Street). This was MPBC’s Building 2. ca1892 Bailey Bros.
Building 3 (1910-1990): SE Corner of 10th Avenue at Quebec Street
In 1909, MPBC approached Toronto architects, Burke, Horwood & White (the firm used by FBC to design their Burrard & Nelson building) to design a new building for them at the SE corner of 10th Avenue and Quebec Street. The building would be of the Tudor Revival style and have a seating capacity of about 650.
The building was destroyed by fire in 2004. But the Baptists had called it quits and moved out by 1990 due to diminishing numbers of attendees and donations. By 1996, a new church (a Pentecostal one) occupied the building. Today, a condo development is on the site of the former MPBC structure.
CVA 780-225 – Mount Pleasant Baptist Church (Building 3) at SE Corner 7th and Quebec. 1976.
Second Child: Jackson Avenue Baptist
The congregation that ultimately became a Baptist church in the East End, began as a Sunday School mission of FBC. It started in a carpentry shop, later moving to a space on Powell Street, and finally to Harris Street (today’s East Georgia).
Building 1 (ca1894-ca1898): On Jackson Avenue
The first building occupied by Jackson Avenue Baptist Church (JABC) seems to have been a re-purposed residence (versus a purpose-built church structure). It was somewhere on Jackson Avenue, but exactly where it was is a bit of a mystery.
JABC’s Building 1. From a lantern slide. n.d. First Baptist Church Archival Collection.
Building 2 (1899-1952): NW Corner of Jackson and East Pender
By 1898, JABC was growing beyond the capacity of their first building and so JABC bought the former building of the local Presbyterians, Zion Presbyterian (NW Corner of Jackson and Princess (East Pender). JABC, for a while, was known as Zion Baptist.
Building 2 of JABC (NW corner of Princess and Jackson). n.d. First Baptist Church Archival Collection.
JABC, like most of the people of Strathcona – the community in which it was situated – was not rich. By the late 1940s, its membership had dropped significantly. Therefore, in 1952, JABC merged with another (also dwindling) Baptist church in the East End, East Hastings Baptist, to form a new church: Ward Memorial Baptist Church (in memory of Rev. Albert W. Ward). It continues to operate today at 465 Kamloops Street
CVA 786-48.15 – 499. Former JABC’s Building 2, converted by this time to be a Chinese Public School. East Pender at Jackson Street. 1978.
Third Child: Fairview Baptist
Fairview Baptist Church was typical of the offspring of FBC in that it began as a Sunday School. In 1902, Mrs. E. Peck offered her home at Maple and 3rd Avenue for a Sunday School. The school met there for 2 years.
Building 1 (1904-1909): Maple and 4th Avenue
In 1904, 20 members of First Baptist ‘got their letters of dismissal’ and formed the nucleus of Fairview Baptist; they also built their first building at the corner of Maple and 4th Avenue. FBC’s historian William Carmichael claims that the first building was built for $500. But the Vancouver Heritage Building Permits site tells a little different story. The building permit indicates an estimate of $1000. The architect/ builder was R. E. Scarlett.
Building 1 of Fairview Baptist at 4th and Maple. The photo was made a few years after the church had moved on. At this time, it had become a Heating and Plumbing enterprise. (First Baptist Church Archival Collection, ca 1910-14).
Building 2 (1909-1924): Fifth Avenue and Arbutus
In 1909, Fairview pulled up stakes. It isn’t clear why. FBC historian, William Carmichael, claims it was “because of the laying of the street car tracks on Fourth Avenue”. This doesn’t further my understanding much, however. Was there a safety concern for the kids?
Fairview built a new structure on 5th Avenue at Arbutus. It was designed/built by Samuel Buttrey Birds for about $5,500.
Fairview Baptist Church. I’m guessing that this was Building 2 (5th at Arbutus). ca1910-20. (UL 1624 03 0259. UBC Library).
With the move to Arbutus and 5th, Fairview Baptist seems to have undergone a period of identity crisis, given subsequent name changes. In ca1913, after being near Fifth Avenue for a few years (although the address was actually 2029 Arbutus), it started calling itself “Fifth Avenue Baptist Church”. In 1918, scarcely five years later, the name was changed to “Kitsilano Baptist Church”. The church building address didn’t change with either of these name changes.
In 1922, following a tumultuous period for “Kitsilano Church” (there was at least one significant split of the Kits congregation), Kits amalgamated with Central Fairview Baptist to form, wait for it . . . “Fairview Baptist”!
Building 3 (1924-1951): 12th Avenue at Fir
In June 1924, Fairview moved into a brick building at 1605 W 12th (NW corner at Fir). In 1949, Fairview briefly and temporarily joined with Chalmers United Church (Hemlock at 12th).
Building 4 (1951-present): 16th Avenue at Pine
In 1951, Fairview opened the building which houses the church today, on W. 16th Avenue near Pine.
Fairview Baptist Church Today (Building 4): 16th Ave Near Pine.(Google Street View).
Fourth Child: Ruth Morton Memorial Baptist
Rev. J. Willard Litch, ca1910, approached the prominent (and generous) Baptist, John Morton, about endowing a new church in the Cedar Cottage district of Vancouver at 27th Avenue and Prince Edward. Morton agreed. Litch wanted to name the church after Morton, but Morton demurred. He instead suggested it be named after his second wife, Ruth Morton (nee Mount). Three weeks after Morton made his endowment to Ruth Morton Memorial Baptist Church (RMMBC), he died (April, 1912).
Ruth Morton Memorial Baptist Church. (ca 2013. mdm photo).
In 2014, RMMBC amalgamated with 19th Avenue Christian Fellowship (formerly the Metropolitan Tabernacle) to form a new congregation that meets at the former Ruth Morton building. It is known as Mountainview Christian Fellowship.
RMMBC/Mountainview has continuously met in the same building from the start.
Fifth Child: South Hill Baptist
Building 1 (1908-1909): South Vancouver Municipal Hall
As usual, this church plant had its start as a Sunday School. It began in the home of the Frank Birketts in 1908. Later, it moved to the South Vancouver Municipal Hall.
CVA – Bu P322 – Exterior of South Vancouver Municipal Hall. 1911.
Building 2 (1909-1912 ): East 50th and Frederick
In 1909, a small building was erected (to which FBC donated $200) at the corner of East 50th and Frederick Street (just a block off Fraser). There don’t seem to be any publicly-available photos still existing of this building.
Building 3 (1912-1970): East 50th and Frederick
The small building was replaced with a more substantial one that was dedicated in October 1912 (same site).
South Hill Baptist Church.This was the second South Hill Baptist bldg at E. 50th and Frederick. (Building 3). CVA – SGN 1029. ca 1912. W. J. Moore photo).
The church still stands today (although with some modifications) as the South Vancouver Pacific Grace Mennonite Brethern Church. South Hill Baptist ceased to exist in 1970. The majority of the remaining congregants (some 35) joined Killarney Baptist.
The Sixth Child: Broadway West Baptist (Collingwood and 7th)
Due to a greater population density in western Kitsilano by 1913, a Sunday School was started in a small store at 3417 West Broadway. In March, 1915, 25 FBC members helped form the nucleus of Broadway West Baptist Church (BWBC). BWBC met in the store until their building was finished ca1923 at Collingwood and 7th Avenue.
Broadway West Baptist Church at 7th Ave. and Collingwood. (First Baptist Church Archival Collection).
Broadway West considered changing their name since they were no longer located on Broadway. The new name they decided on was a mouthful: “Broadway West Baptist Church Seventh & Collingwood.” That remained the legal name for the balance of the church’s life (which seemed to end by the mid-1990s).
The former Baptist Church building still stands today. It is occupied by a Pentecostal congregation, Redemption Church.
The Last Kid: West Point Grey Baptist (11th Avenue near Sasamat)
In December 1926, 12 members of FBC met at the home of Dr. and Mrs. Wilbur Watson to plan the formation of a church in their neighbourhood of West Point Grey. The initial temporary home of the church was a Presbyterian building on 4th Avenue east of Sasamat. The first pastor was a former FBC assistant pastor, J. R. Turnbull.
On September 10, 1932, dedication services were held celebrating the move of West Point Grey Baptist (WPGBC) into their building located at 11th Avenue near Sasamat. The FBC choir presented the special music, and then-FBC pastor Rev. Elbert Paul gave the address.
In 2020, West Point Grey merged with Lord’s Peace Chapel (formerly located in Marpole; they met at the Scottish Cultural Centre on Hudson Street).
WPGBC has been at the same site since 1932.
11th and Sasamat (Google Street View)
Notes
There was nothing at all pejorative about the word ‘dismissed’ when used in this context; dismissal simply meant that members were free to request membership at another Baptist church. For more on Baptist membership transfer, see here.
CVA 447-322: Empire Building [601 West Hastings Street] 1951 W E Frost, photographer
The Empire Building (C. O. Wickenden, architect) was located at the NW corner of Hastings at Seymour from 1889 until the late 1970s. It was initially known as the LeFevre Block, as the structure was built for CPR physician, Dr. James R. LeFevre.
A question which often arises in my mind with such structures is “Who were the tenants who occupied it?” It seems to me that the type of tenants (e.g., lawyers, realtors, doctors, accountants) must surely have created a certain sort of building; a certain sort of atmosphere within.
So I dug into Vancouver directories. Most of the early directories in the pre-privacy-obsessed world of the millennial age helpfully showed not only the name and first initial of the occupants of buildings, but also their occupation. If there was no gender/marital designation (e.g., Miss or Mrs), it was safe to assume that the occupant shown was male (although, whether the person was a bachelor or married was left to the reader’s imagination).
I was curious whether the dominant occupations of tenants in the building remained roughly static or varied over time. Therefore, I divided the Empire’s past into two periods: Early (1891-1933) and later (1934-1954).¹
Early vs Later Tenants
In the early years of the LeFevre Building (as it evidently was known until about 1897) it wasn’t as easy as it became a little later to determine the occupations of those who were tenants; the Vancouver directory did not consistently show occupations in the earliest years. However, some could be deduced. For example, Dr. LeFevre and his physician partner, Dr. Octavius Weld, had offices in the building. Likewise the architect of the block, C. O. Wickenden, the B. C. Chamber of Mines, the Vancouver Board of Trade, and the New Westminster & Burrard Inlet Telephone Co., Ltd. (which by the mid-1890s apparently became the B.C. Telephone Co.) rented space there.
What became evident pretty quickly is that the nature of the tenants in LeFevre/Empire changed considerably between the 1890s and the 1920s and ’30s.² In short, it went from being a block that catered primarily to professions and services to one that was dominated by music-related businesses (e.g. teachers, drama schools, elocutionists, and dancing studios). If pressed, I’d say that the single most common occupation in the Empire in the 1920s and ’30s was the music teacher.
Frank Haines
Frank Haines
One of the Empire’s tenants from 1931 until the mid-’40s was Frank Haines (1879-1944).
Haines was born in England and was a musician, and saw himself as such from his teens onward. He was sent to a school of music in London by his parents at age 12; he graduated at age 18. His instrument was the piano. For the first couple of years after completing his studies, he was pianist to a tenor who spent much of that time touring Europe. Apparently, the pianist and tenor had a major disagreement over something (just what was the subject of their disagreement is long ago forgotten) so Haines quit that job and returned to England.
Shortly after, Haines fell in love with a lady called Alice Alexander. The two ultimately became engaged to marry. But Alice left Frank at the altar – quite literally. Naturally, Frank was angry and heartbroken by this and he left England for the New World, vowing never to return to England.³
It isn’t clear just what Haines was occupied doing when he first came to Canada. There is some evidence in Alberta records that he homesteaded near Medicine Hat in 1910. There are unsubstantiated family tales about him working in the U.S. and Canada. He spent some of the war years in the Canadian forces. He was injured in an automobile accident in France and was subsequently discharged. In 1917, there is evidence that he was conducting Winnipeg’s Imperial Theatre Orchestra (which, in later years, became the Majestic and, later still, the Rialto). Whether he remained in Winnipeg during the ’20s or was elsewhere, isn’t clear. But it is plain from the Vancouver directory that in 1931, he had ‘gone west’ and was living in Vancouver at 905 Davie; and he had a studio in Room 211 of the Empire Building.
Frank married Nancy Marshall in 1932. In 1935, they welcomed their daughter, Nancy Haines, into the family.
Nancy spent several early years (approximately age 5 to 8) in the Empire Building. Part of the time during those years was spent in her father’s studioº (either for her Saturday morning piano lesson or at her Dad’s ‘music evenings’ when his students would perform and she would attend – sleeping on someone’s lap, more often than not – to save the cost of a babysitter); part was spent in elocution training with a ‘Mrs. Thompson’.
Nancy describes the Haines studio: He had an “upright piano shoved against the far wall. The studio would hold four or five people in a pinch. No desk. And he had a key to the common bathroom on that floor. There was a radiant electric heater on the floor of my Father’s studio in the winter; I remember the bright red filament glowing and reflecting on the curved metal case on the back. I also remember a single large pull-up window that looked out on the ‘well’ between the Empire’s wings. Dad didn’t have a street view from his studio.”
She also has described some of the sights, sounds, and odours of the building, in general:
From the Hastings entrance, there were stairs up from the street to the 2nd floor — the hallway at the top went straight north to the other end of the building AND to the west – with studios along both hallways on both sides. The ceilings were high (I recall pipes running along the tops of them), causing sounds to be sort of lost up there. There was a glass panel in the upper part of each of the studio doors. The panels were not transparent; you could see light and movement through the glass, but no clear image of anything or anybody. There was lettering on the glass. The floor in the building creaked a lot — so much so that I can still ‘hear’ it in my memory. There was a ‘walking’ runner down the middle of the wooden floors in the hallways. The Empire elevator was at the north end of the building. The stairs wound around the black iron cage that housed the clanking elevator and cables.
The smell of the building was ‘old’; it was similar to the smell of a building I would later spend time in — that of Lord Roberts School (I believe the janitors oiled the wooden floors in the hallways to prevent them drying out).
You could hear ‘hollow’ sounds emanating from the studios – a cough, a piano playing, a singing voice – as you walked past them. I can’t imagine – with all the sounds I heard every Saturday for 3+ years – that there was anything resembling sound-proofing in the Empire. The Empire was a busy ‘people’ building, with long-remembered sights, smells and sounds that are dear to this old lady.
Frank Haines died at age 64 in 1944 of a heart attack.
After Empire
The Empire was demolished in 1980. In about 1985, it was replaced with a glassed-in, circular public structure as part of the Grant Thornton complex (adjacent and to the north), which was located where the St. Francis Hotel once was. The structure isn’t long for this world, however. The corner is due for redevelopment along the same lines as the NE corner of Georgia and Howe: more retail space will be the result.
NW Corner of Seymour and Hastings where the Empire Block once stood. 2017. mdm photo. In the Summer of 2018, this public meeting place in turn was destroyed, sadly, to make way for additional commercial space.
Notes
¹I didn’t take the research beyond the mid-1950s as I didn’t have access to Vancouver directories beyond that period. At the time this research was underway, the Special Collections department of VPL (where post-1950s directories are held) was closed for construction.
²In 1942, John Goss had space at the Empire, apparently prior to establishing himself and his studio on Granville Street. And for the better part of the 1920s-1940s, Miss M. P. and Miss B. Cave-Brown-Cave hung their music teaching shingle at the Empire.
³ As is often the case with things we vow never to do, he did return to England on at least two occasions: in 1915 when he was hospitalized due to a wartime injury; and for a visit in 1922.
ºI’m delighted to report that a photo of an interior of a music studio in the Empire is available in SFU’s Digitized Collection here. It shows the studio of Dr. Albert Gittins, whose studio was on the same floor as — and looked quite similar to that of — Frank Haines’ studio, according to Haines’ daughter, Nancy.
Before there was a network of branch public libraries in Vancouver, the demand for inexpensive reading material was met in large part by the private sector. Not principally by new or used booksellers, but by an entirely different category of for-profit book provider — book lending libraries. We in the 21st century are so accustomed to equating “libraries” with “public libraries” that it takes a while to conceive that a library can be a for-profit venture!
In 1929, there was only one VPL branch in addition to the central library at Hastings and Main: the Kits branch at 2375 W 4th Avenue (today, the site is part of a Safeway parking lot). That was it. If you lived in Marpole or the West End or most any other Vancouver neighbourhood, there was no public library within relatively easy walking distance.
1929 was also the year of the stock market crash that started the Great Depression. For the better part of a decade, most Vancouverites had precious little disposable income for books and other non-essentials. Thus, there was a market niche to be filled by the private library.
The details of how private libraries did business are very sketchy. I suspect many would have had a 1-year membership card (see the Eaton’s card below) which a client would purchase and then have a ‘license to borrow’. Other libraries, like the Spencer’s Lending Library (left), had daily and monthly fees.
It seems that independent private libraries obtained their stock principally from wholesale book distributors and sources of deaccessioned public library books (Province, 26 Oct 1930).
One thing seems certain: the proprietors of these private libraries didn’t become wealthy!
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that many of the libraries listed below got started around 1929. And I don’t think it a coincidence that private libraries faded to black, for the most part, by 1955, just when the VPL system had bolstered its network of public libraries to seven branches.
Today, private lending libraries in Vancouver are a thing of the past and alien to most of us.
CVA 303-1 Vancouver Public Library – Kitsilano Branch, ca 1929. At the time, this was the only branch public library in the VPL system. Kits branch was opened in 1928.
A List of Private Libraries
I have attempted to identify as many private libraries as I can, including the rough period during which they were in business, where the library was located (and when) and the names of the proprietors.
Abbott Library (1928-33) – 916 Robson. Proprietor: Mrs. May Abbott (1928-1930). In 1928, the address in the directory was 914 Robson. In 1931, the library became Abbott Book Store.
Blenheim Lending Library (1929-37) – 3353 W. 4th Ave. (1929-34); 3639 W 4th (1934); 2252 W 4th Ave. (1935); Proprietors: Miss D. Millar; R. H. Hague [1896-1958] (1931); H. Martin (1932); Miss M. Richardson (1933-35); Mrs. B. C. Scott and Mrs. M. H. Mason (1936-37).
CVA 1376-521 – The Stanley Library, 2820 Granville. 1933.
Cosy Corner Library (1932-46) – 1307 Commercial Drive; 1830 Commercial Drive (1940-41); 1303 Commercial Drive (1941-42); 1022 Commercial Drive (1943-46). Proprietors: Mrs. M. M. Shoebotham [1888-1958] (1932-39); Mrs. M. J. Henderson (1940); M. W. Corbett (1941-45); F. Carothers (1946).
Dunbar Heights Library (1931-38) – 4311 Dunbar Street. Proprietors: T. Smith (1931-35); Miss E. M. Watson (1936-38 ). Name change to Dunbar Heights Book and Stationery Lending Library (1935-36). Name change: Dunbar Lending Library (1937-38).
Good Companion Library (1933-41) – 1405 Robson. Proprietors: Mrs. Charlotte M. Cole.
Harlequin Lending Library (1929-1940) – 1194 Davie Street. Proprietors: Miss M. Harvey (1929-31); Miss A. Van Kleeck (1932- 33); Miss L. J. Taylor (1934-38); Mrs. F. M. Riddell (1939-40).
15 June 1933 West End Breeze. Courtesy: Neil Whaley*. According to this clip, the VPL system shut down during July and August in the 1930s!
Hudson’s Bay Company Books and Lending Library (1915-ca1949 ) – Granville and Georgia. Part of HBC department store.
Kerrisdale Book Nook (1928-1955+) – 2166 W. 41st Avenue. (1928-40); 2176 W 41st Avenue (1941-51); 2135 .W. 41st Ave. (1952-55+). Proprietors: W. S. Bosworth (1928-31); Mrs. H. Blair (1932-34); J. A. Henderson (1935-39); H. M. Jewell (1940-47); Mrs. C. T. Crossing (1948-55+).
The Lending Library (1933) – 2425 E Hastings Street. Proprietor: C. C. Backhus.
“Western House [Private] Library” stamped over “Collingwood Public Library Association”.* Image made from the fly leaf of a book at The Paper Hound Bookshop with permission of the proprietors.
The Library (1925-51) – 2820 Granville Street (1925-1933); 2830 Granville (1934-35). Proprietors: Mrs. J. R. Davidson (1925-36); Mrs. D. M. Kirby (1937-51). This library was named “The Library” perhaps with the vain hope of exclusivity!
E. D. Macfarlane’s Circulating Library (1933-47) – 2606 Granville. Proprietor: Erle D. Macfarlane.
Mayfair Library (1932-35) – 1540 W. 41st Avenue; 2166 W 41st Avenue (1935). Proprietor: J. A. Henderson (1932-35).
West End Breeze, 16 Sept 1932. Courtesy: Neil Whaley*
Modern Lending Library (1932-42) – 1009 W. King Edward. Miss Proprietors: Miss P Blake, R. Sidaway (1932-34); Mrs. E. Denton (1937-38); Miss M. A. Baum (1939-42). Name change to Modern Book Shop in 1943. Proprietor remained Baum. Address still 1009 King Edward. No mention of there being a lending library associated with the shop, so assuming the library became a bookstore.
Oak Street Lending Library (1930-41) – 3129 Oak Street (1930-35 ); 3216 Oak Street (1936-41). Proprietors: Mrs. M. McTavish (1930-37); Mrs. M. I. Scott (1938-40); Mrs. E. Cool [1884-1958] (1941).
Oxford Book Shop and Lending Library (1929-54) – 2164 W 4th Avenue (1929-1934); 1039 Granville (1935-37); 1540 W 41st Avenue (1938-52); 5737 Granville (1953-54). Proprietors: Miss D. Dashwood [1881-1950] (1929-31); Mrs. M. I. C. Key [1898-1985] (1932-34); S. B. Farmer (1935-37; Miss G. Carfrae (1938); S. B. Farmer (1939-40); Miss G. Carfrae (1941); G. R. Ellingham (1942-54).
Point Grey Lending Library (1929-55) – 5510 Dunbar Street (1929); 5525 Dunbar St (1931-34; 5691 Dunbar Street (1935-38); 5557 Dunbar (1939-55). Proprietor: F. S. Robinson (1930-55).
Popular Lending Library (1929-42) – 4479 W 10th Avenue (1929-34); 4489 W 10th Avenue (1935-37); 4451 W 10th Avenue. Proprietors: Mrs. M. F. Vulliamy [1886-1963] (1929-36); Miss D. Howden (1937); Mrs. D. Arnott (1938-39); Mrs. N. C. Clarke (1940-42).
Eaton’s Book subscription membership card 1935. I suspect a card similar to this was necessary to borrow books from other private libraries in Vancouver. However, it could not have been a membership card for Vancouver, as Eaton’s didn’t have a Vancouver store in 1935. The department store came to Vancouver in 1948 after buying out David Spencer, Ltd. MDM Collection.
Ridgewell Lending Library (1929-54) – 3494 Dunbar. Proprietors: Mrs. Alice G. Ridgewell [1876-1960] (1929-31); H. Gatenby [1895-1969] (1932-54).
Spencer’s Leading Library (1934-48) – Hastings and Richards. Part of the Daivd Spencer, Ltd. department store. Spencer’s was purchased by Eaton’s in 1948. Presumbably, Eaton’s established their own local library then, although I can’t confirm that.
Stanley Library (1934-44) – 2820 Granville Street. Proprietors: Miss L. J. Leslie (1934-42); Mrs. H. Raymer (1943-44).
Western House Library (1933-51) – 957 Denman Street. Proprietor: Miss Louise Grant (1933-51).
Windsor Lending Library (1932-33) – 916 Robson (1932); 1056 Robson (1933). Proprietors: Gwendolyn P. Jones (1932); Percy James (1933). Windsor library was sold to Percy James of Kensington Arts in 1933. The library seems not to have been retained with a distinctive identity following the merger, however.
Ye Booke Nooke (1929-55+) – 1063 Denman Street (1929-32); 1187 Denman St. (1933-57) Proprietor: Mrs. Elsie W. Beach [1888-1969] (1929-55+). Claim made in 1932 ad that non-members could borrow books for 3c/day, with a minimum charge of 5c. “The monthly [membership?] charge for adults is 65 cents,and for children, from 6 to 14 years, 25 cents.” (West End Breeze, Sept 16 1932)*. “….Mrs. Beach has 5000 new and proven books upon her shelves.” (West End Breeze 6 Oct 1933)*.
Yew Lending Library (1931-55+) – 1508 Yew. Proprietor: Miss O. A Wilde (1931-55+).
Notes
*Neil Whaley has very kindly granted me permission to reproduce clippings and information from the West End Breeze , a four-page community newspaper published between 1932 and 1933. Neil has a bound edition of the Breeze — quite possibly the only such copy extant — which was the editor/publisher’s copy. “The format was that there was one real story of a reasonable length (perhaps 500 words) and then everything else was one-paragraph blurbs which talked about businesses in the West End — who not so coincidentally advertised in the WEB.” (Email message from Neil Whaley to MDM).
John Jenkinson (1871-1936) described himself on his marriagecertificate as an electrician. His occupation in the early years of the 20th century was as a lineman for the CPR and later for the BCER (BC Electric Railway). He worked his way up to a meter reader, and then as a meter inspector for the BCER. By the time he died in 1936, he had been promoted to superintendent of the metering department. He was a player of lawn bowls, and he loved to sing with the choir at Christ Church and with the Western Triple Men’s Choir. But I believe Jenkinson’s legacy lies in none of these occupations and activities. It was as an amateur photographer that Jenkinson shone and, in my opinion, continues to shine.
CVA 242-04: Portrait of Ellen Jenkinson, ca1910, wearing one of the voluminous hats which she seemed to favor.
John Jenkinson was born in Lancashire, England to William and Priscilla Jenkinson. I presume he trained as an electrician in the Motherland. He came to Canada in 1898, settling in Vancouver and here he married Ellen Johanne Anderson, who was a native of Copenhagen, Denmark (1875-1951), in 1902. The couple had one child together, Olga (1904-1980).
For a couple of years before he was married, John boarded at a home on Eveleigh Street. But soon after he and Ellen were wed, they moved to 992 Howe (Howe and Nelson). This seems to have been a house with a couple or more suites within it (by the time the photo below was taken by Yates in 1959, the main floor was a retail space and the space above it was residential).
Bu P508.6 – [Exterior of building at the North East corner of Nelson and Howe Street] 1959, A. L. Yates photo. Oddly, there are no Jenkinson images online at CVA of this home when they were living there.
From what I can tell, John and Ellen were never wealthy. It seems likely that they enjoyed a middle-income lifestyle, but nothing extravagant. A meter reader’s job was to check the amount of electricity used by a household as recorded on the meter attached to each home. It was the job of the meter inspector to certify electricity meters were functioning accurately.
I’m assuming (pretty safely, I think) that the photographer in the family was John. Olga was too young to have made most of these images, and I doubt that Ellen would have been the photographer, given the relatively sexist attitude to the hobby in its early days.
Many of Jenkinson’s photos were exteriors and interiors of homes that he didn’t own. I am very impressed, in particular, with how he was able to get ample light in his interior shots. That would have been among the biggest challenges of his day.
CVA 242-11 – Exterior of 1260 Barclay Street, ca 1901.
The residence shown above and below was 1260 Barclay Street, at the time, the home of F. F. Burns, son of John Burns, Sr., who also seems to have lived there. F. F. Burns was a metal merchant in the city.
CVA 242-13 – Interior and exterior views of 1260 Barclay Street, ca 1901. The decor in this room screams Victorian! Complete with the stag above the fireplace.
The home shown below was a near neighbour of the Burns place. This home belonged to Adolphus Williams at 1139 Barclay.
CVA 242-10.15 – Mr. Williams house at 1139 Barclay Street, ca 1901.
CVA 242-10.16 – Williams’ drawing room, ca1901.
The image below is one of my favourites among those made by Jenkinson. It is an unusual photo of English Bay that clearly shows the slide into the Bay (and the kids climbing back up to the platform)!
CVA 242-14.2 – View of English Bay, ca1901.
And here is another of my favourites, showing the Elders, Stanley Park superintendents, sitting very stiffly in front of their Park cottage.
CVA 242-05 – Stanley Park [with Mr. Elder, Park Superintendent and his wife, in front of their cottage at entrance to Stanley Park.], ca1900.
To conclude, I’ll show an exterior and interior of the Jenkinson home that John owned when he died. It was certainly a few of steps up from 992 Howe, but it didn’t have the pizzazz of the Burns place. This home was on the corner of 15th Avenue and Burrard.
CVA 242-19 – North and west facades of John Jenkinson’s home at 1796 West 15th Avenue, ca1927.
CVA 242-22 – Interior of 1796 West 15th Avenue, far end of living room with piano, ca 1927.
I suspect that Jenkinson’s connection to these home-owners who allowed him access to the interior of their homes was his (and their?) church: Christ Church. I have confirmed that Adolphus Williams was affiliated with Christ Church. But haven’t been able to confirm that either Burns or Elder were.
Of course, it could be that the explanation is simpler. He might have gotten to know these families during his time as a meter reader — reading their electricity meters!
CVA 99-3749 – Georgia Medical Dental Building at Northwest Corner Georgia at Hornby. 1929. Stuart Thomson photo. (Note: The angle from which this image was taken makes the ground level on the right side of the wooden construction zone fence appear to be lower than the street on the left side. But it isn’t. Photographer Thomson was probably inside the construction barrier of the 3rd Hotel Vancouver shooting from near the top of the fence line; Thomson was the official photographer of the hotel’s construction.)
It is all too easy to impress the present onto the past. Especially in cases where there has been an attempt made by contemporary architects to ‘nod’ to a prior building that once occupied a lot (which I consider praise-worthy). A good example of this is the Georgia Medical-Dental Building (MDB, hereafter; 1929; McCarter & Nairne, architects), which was demolished by implosion in 1989, and the Shaw Tower at Cathedral Place (SCP, hereafter; 1991; Merrick, architect), which stands on the lot today.
When I recently happened upon the image above, I was initially disturbed by the apparent narrowness of the old MDB. It appeared to me to be only half as wide as it ought to be.
At first, I thought that perhaps when work started on the structure, the economic downturn of the Great Depression forced the builder to focus on building just the southern slice; that the northern half would be built later to create the square footprint that I assumed was ‘natural’ for the structure.
But that was not the case.
The next image revealed my error: MDB had an ‘L’ footprint, not the square one that I’d assumed it had. My assumption was due, in part at least, to my expectation that the older building would have had the same sort of footprint as today’s SCP has.
VPL 12176 View looking east at the Georgia Medical-Dental Building from Burrard Street; this reveals that the structure had an “L” footprint, not a square one. 1930. Frank Leonard photo.
Features in Common and Differences
There was an attempt made by the architect of SCP (Paul Merrick, 1991) to replicate some features of the Medical-Dental building. Common features include:
‘Nursing sisters’ on the corners of the buildings;
‘Step-backs’ at higher floors;
Use of materials having contrasting colours (on MDB, use of differently coloured brick; on SCP, use of glass and concrete);
There are many more differences between the past and present occupants of the northwest corner of Georgia at Hornby than there are commonalities:
MDB had an ‘L’ footprint, SCP has a square one;
CVA 99-3749 – Georgia Medical Dental Building at Northwest Corner Georgia at Hornby. 1929. Stuart Thomson photo.
MDB had an appended, above-ground, 4-storey garage attached to the Hornby arm. SCP has an underground parking garage;
There was a single step-back at the 10th floor of the MDB. There are several step-backs on SCP;
MDB had 17 floors. SCP has 23;
On MDB, there were just the ‘nursing sisters’ as exterior ornaments and they appeared only at the 10th floor step-back and were of terra cotta. The nurses on SCP appear on the northeast corner just a couple of stories up and also higher on the building at the step-backs; there are other exterior ornaments on SCP, including griffins. The nurses and other ornaments on SCP are made of fibre glass;
MDB had a blunt roofline with lighter bricks near the roof to contrast with darker brickwork below. SCP has a chateaux-style roof (which, together with the griffins, is probably a nod to the architecture of its near neighbour, the Hotel Vancouver).
A griffin and other ornaments (including a rain diverter) on Shaw Tower at Cathedral Place (taken from Hotel Vancouver). c2013. Author’s photo.
Updated June 15, 2024. Updated entries shown in italics.
In this post, I plan to list all of the ’20s ‘dance bands’ (referred to at the time, typically, as ‘orchestras’) I can identify. These will include Vancouver-based musical groups as well as those that had their base elsewhere. Each listing will include the name of the group, the leader and all the personnel I can identify who played with each group.
The list will not include any of the large orchestras that played in Vancouver (e.g., the VSO, Home Gas Orchestra, Scottish Orchestra).
In short, the post will be a research piece about those groups of musically gifted men and women who entertained their contemporaries while they were enjoying a meal (and, I daresay, tapping their toes to the beat) or dancing up a storm to their melodies.*
—-
The Aitch-Bee Trio (ca1919-28) – E. G. Warne (violin); W. B. McQueen (cello); W. A. Storey (piano). “Playing daily at the Hudson’s Bay Company’s Restaurant.” 1925: By this year, was called “The Hudson’s Bay Trio”. Storey was out; Frank Nichols (piano) was in.
Ambassador Cafe Orchestra (ca1925-26) – Leader: Frank Maracci (violin, sax, trombone); L. Martin (trumpet); Len Wilson (banjo); Martin H. Beliger (sax, clarinet); H. Zweifel (sax, clarinet); F. E. McComb (drums); William Sodeburg (piano). 1925: By this year, Martin, Len Wilson, McComb and Sodeburg were out; Tug Wilson (trumpet); Frank Hamilton (piano), and Harry Hamilton (drums) were in. AKA “Ambassador Cafe Bluebird Orchestra”.
Tom E. Andrews Orchestra (sometimes known as the Master Dance Players) (1922-1925) – Leader: Andrews; Jack H. Wilson (Coronet); Fernie Quinn; Art Thomas; Thomas Crawford (violin); Reese Campbell (sax and clarinet). Played Cotillion Dance Hall (Davie and Granville).
Arcadians (1920s-1930s) – Leader: Frank Nichols; Bob Levie (sax, voilin); Toby Kent (banjo); Betty Warne (violin); Archie Peebles (trombone, accordion); Johnnie McNair (drums). The band seems to have folded by ca1935.
Belcarra Orchestra (1926) – Leader: Billy Millichip (drums); Jean Goodheart (piano); Don Raino (banjo); Bill McLean (sax).
Cabaret Belmont Orchestra – Leader: J. A. Cooper (drums); D. S. Flynn (piano); C. H. D. Hill (saxes and clarinet); Charles Pawlett (violin, banjo); A. N. Kerr (trumpet); A. W. Arstad (trombone).
Frederick Brown and his Orchestra – Leader: Brown; A. W. Delamont (trumpet); Harry Stocker (clarinet); R. S. Ralph (trombone); G. H. H. Keeling (string bass); G. M. Jolley (percussionist); A. Osbaldeston (piano). Played at the “Pan”.
Calvert Trio (ca1925-35) – Joy Calvert (violin); Minnie Beveridge — later Freda Setter — (cello); Una Calvert (piano).
Canadian Pacific Jazz Symphonists (ca1925-29) – Leader: Olive E. Beaton (piano); Ethel Planta (violin); Will Edmunds (cello); Gaston Somny (banjo); Robert Griffiths (contra-bass); Alex Donaghy (sax, clarinet); Paul LaMoureaux (sax, clarinet); Carl Tossell (trumpet); Art Clarke (percussion). Played at the Indian Grill and Ballroom, Hotel Vancouver. AKA: “Ollie Beaton and Her Orchestra,” “Canadian Pacific Symphonists”.
Lawrence Crawford’s “Princess Kathleen” Orchestra – here aboard the “Alice”. Crawford doesn’t appear here (he was the one behind the camera, I think). UBC Open Collections. 1929.
Canadiens – Leader: Les Crane. Lloyd Mansfield, Jean Pomeroy, Bus Totten; La-Vern Walton. Played the Belmont Cabaret. In one of their ads they make the claim that they are “Just five boys trying to get along.” This group seems to have been from somewhere other than Vancouver.
Canary Cottage Orchestra – Leader: Wes Mortimer (trumpet); Jerome V. R. Clifford (piano); Allan H. Rice (sax); Art Strachan (sax, clarinet); Ewart Riedinger Jr. (drums); Fred Ross (banjo); Harry Hills (sax, bass). Played the (Indian) Grill, Hotel Vancouver. AKA: “Erdodys Canary Cottage Orchestra”. Wes Mortimer was a one-armed trumpet player. When Canary Cottage broke up, Mortimer was the concert master for Calvin Winters’ Capitolians for a number of years.
Cassidy and his Orchestra – Leader: Lafe Cassidy (trumpet); Marion Stafford (piano); Forrest Moneingo (sax, clarinet, trumpet, piano); Vernon Dale (sax, piano, violin); Karl Cassidy (sax); Hal Underwood (sax, clarinet, trumpet, banjo); Frank Roach (percussion). Played the Cabaret at Belmont Hotel. 1925: By this year, Stafford, Moneingo, Dale, and Karl Cassidy were out; Buck Dale (piano), Ken Evans (trombone), and Bert McGee (banjo) were in. By 1927, only Lafe Cassidy and Frank Roach remained of the original group. Others were: Harry Spees (trombone, violin); Walter Romerra (sax, clarinet); Harold Gard (piano); Chic Inge (banjo, sax).
The Cavaliers – H. Edwards (banjo); Stanley Robertson (sax), E. A. Griffiths (drums); W. Kenning (piano). By 1925, Edwarads was out; H. Swaboda (banjo) was in.
Criterion Orchestra. Courtesy of Tom Carter’s collection, n.d.The band member at far right might be banjoist Wally Pullman.
The Charleston Four (1925) – Leader: Frank Nichols (piano); Eddie Austin (sax, clarinet, violin); Toby Kent (banjo); Art Newman (drums).
Columbia Concert Orchestra – Leader: Walter De Lowe; Mrs. Francis Knight (violin); Marie Armstrong (violin); Ernestine Walters (flute); Enid Kimball (trumpet);Faye Leonard (clarinet); Virginia Barnard (cello); Was Kimball (trombone); Harrie Grether (bass); Lois Carpentier (percussion); Edith Dupree (piano); Gladys L. Collins (vocal soloist).
Columbia Theatre Orchestra – Leader: E. W. Atkinson (piano) (by May 1924, Matthews was leader); Archie Matthews (violin); Jack Cochrane (drums); by May 1924, A. W. Clark (trumpet) and Gus Muller (piano).
Columbians – Leader: Harry Hamilton (percussion, sax); West Gilland (sax, clarinet); Harry Karr (sax, clarinet); “Tug” Wilson (trumpet); Charles Pawlett (violin, banjo); Frank Hamilton (piano). Played the Alexandra Dancing Pavillion.
Harry E. Hamilton who (together with his brother, Frank) appears regularly in this list. Photo courtesy of Tom Carter’s collection, n.d.
Court Orchestra – Leader: W. Garden (piano); S. Kyall (banjo); George Northey (sax); A. Kingcombe (cornet); Len Holland (xylophone, piano, accordion); A. Peebles (trombone); N. Northrup (drums).
Lawrence Crawford’s “Princess Kathleen” Orchestra (ca1928-35) – Leader: Lawrence Crawford (violin); Harry Pryce (cello); George Cratch (piano); Arthur W. Clarke (trumpet). 1925: By this year, Pryce and Cratch were out; J. Kellaway, and W. A. Storey were in.
Criterion Orchestra (ca1923-29) – Dick Gardner (percussion); Harry Tarlton (piano); George Bush (banjo); Don McMillan (sax). Played the Hippodrome at English Bay. This group appears to have been one of the most stable bands of the 1920s, in terms of membership.
Empress Theatre Orchestra – Leader: Fred Weaver (piano); W. B. McQueen (cello); E. G. Richardson (trumpet); William Edgett (violin); Art Clarke (drums); Thomas Read (trombone).
Don Flynn and his Orchestra – Leader: Flynn (piano); Fernie Quinn (sax); Boyd Lewis (banjo); Leslie Hulme (drums); Tug Wilson (trumpet). Played Cotillion Dance Hall.
Frank and his Orchestra – Leader: Frank Nichols (piano, violin); Betty Warne (violin); Toby Kent (banjo, violin): Ernie Anderson (sax, clarinet, banjo); Archie Peebles (trombone, piano, accordion); Eddie Anderson (percussion); Eddie Austin (sax, clarient, banjo).
Fraser Theatre Orchestra – Leader: Bert Kool (piano); Jack Spencer (violin); Ed Wade (percussion).
Charlie Galloway – Leader: Galloway (violin).
Billy Garden and his Orchestra – Leader: Garden.
Vancouver Sun. 1928.
Get Acquainted Club Dance Orchestra – Leader: Frank Nichols (piano); Carl Tossell (trumpet); E. S. Austin (sax, clarinet); Toby Kent (banjo); Archie Peebles (trombone); Romeo Perry (percussion). Played at Dominion Dance Hall (339 W. Pender).
Earl Gray & his Orchestra – Leader: Gray; Earl Gibson (piano); George Eichhorn (percussion); Kenneth Cramer (bass); Brayton Frankhorner (banjo, violin); Ted Huffin (trumpet, mellaphone); Gale Claggett (trombone, trumpet, euphonium, sax); Paul McCrea (sax, clarinet, guitar); Henry Belland (sax, clarinet). Played the Hotel Vancouver Grill Room.
Globe Theatre Orchestra – Leader: Hugh Wallace (piano); W. B. McQueen (cello); Charles Pawlett (violin).
John Harper’s Hotel Georgia Concert Trio – Leader: Harper (piano); Helene Ainsworth (viola); Freda V.(cello). Freda’s surname wasn’t legible in my source.
Hastings Park Pavillion Orchestra – E. Couling (violin); J. H. Younghusband (cornet); C. Gaunt (trombone); A. G. McLeod (drums); F. Parsons (piano).
Earle C. Hill Orchestra (ca1920-?) – Leader: Hill (violin); George Bush; others unknown. Played Barron Hotel Restaurant and Cafe DeLuxe (147 1/2 West Hastings) 1920. Judging from the photo below, Earle Hill also played the Spanish Grill at Hotel Vancouver.
Earle C. Hill Orchestra. This photo was made at the Spanish Grill, Hotel Vancouver. Courtesy of Tom Carter’s collection, n.d.
Hotel Georgia Orchestra – Leader: Harry Pryce (piano, cello); Harry Karr (sax, clarinet); Fernie Quinn (Sax, clarinet); Wes Mortimer (trumpet, sax); Bill Arstad (trombone); George Anderson (sax); Charlie Pawlette (banjo, viola); Harry Hamilton (drums, sax, piano).
Harry Pryce
Hotel Vancouver Quartette(aka Hotel Vancouver Concert Orchestra) – Leader: Olive Beaton (piano); Ethel Planta (violin); Will Edmunds (cello); Robert Griffiths (bass). Played the Oval Room, Hotel Vancouver.
Howard’s Orchestra – Leader: Arnold Howard (piano); William McLean (sax); Harvey Nixon (drums).
Tex Howard and his Orchestra – Leader: Howard (drums); Emerald Krantz (piano); John Bowmer (sax, banjo); William Stewart (trumpet, banjo, slide cornet); West Gilland (sax, clarinet); Hollis Rich (sax, clarinet, guitar); Gale Claggett (trombone, sax, trumpet, mellophone, euphonium, banjo); Lucian Gerhardt (sax, trumpet, mellophone). This group was from Seattle.
Hughie’s Colonials– Hughie (piano); Freddy (banjo); Charlie (sax); Jack (drums). Note: Surnames of players are unknown to me.
The Revellers (l-r?): Teddy Duncan, Eddie Camel, George Gossen, Vincent Cashmore, Homer Woodworth. April 1928 at Kent Piano House on Granville Street. MDM Collection.
Dwight Johnson and his Orchestra – Leader: Johnson; Arthur Most (trombone); Claude Burch (trumpet); James Whippo (trumpet); Bob Dickson (sax); Ray Johnson (piano); Alfred Taylor (clarinet, sax); T. W. Porter (sax); Wally Marks (drums); Prentice Gross (banjo); Ralph Dougherty (string bass, tuba). This was an American band, advertising itself as “the Southland’s finest” and “direct from Hotel St. Francis, San Francisco” (he was also reputed to come from Portland).
Bert Kool and his Orchestra ( ) – Leader: Herbert Augustus Kool (piano).
Ladies’ Orchestra – Leader: Amanda Redfern (violin); Betty Newton (violin); Jessie Ziegler (viola); Frances Engleman (cello); Ruth Jones (piano); Florence Bayly (trumpet); Gertrude Johnson (percussion).
Ted Lander’s Orchestra (ca1928-29) – Leader: Lander (sax, trombone); Vic Ross (piano); George Hackett (trumpet); Don Raino (banjo); Henry Anderson (sax); Bev White (percussion).
Percy Lee’s Country Club Orchestra – Leader: Lee (piano); Art Griffith (trumpet); Bert White (drums); Harry Hill (Sax); Herb Roach (Banjo); Claude Hill (bass, clarinet, trumpet); Alf. Olson (bass, clarinet); Alex. Pitts (banjo); Billy Duncan (drums).(Note: Not all of these people played together at the same time). Played the Pavilion at Bowen Island and on Union Steamships’ “Lady Alexander”.
This may be the Criterions or perhaps Earle C. Hill’s orchestra. George Bush appears in this as the banjo player. This is probably the Elk’s Hall. Courtesy of Tom Carter’s collection, n.d.
Slides from a light box similar to the one that appears in the photo above beneath the elk’s head. Tom Carter’s Collection, n.d.
Lonsdale Pavilion Orchestra – Leader: Miss A. Webb (piano); Frank Bolney (banjo); Harold Bott (drums and traps).
Frank Maracci & his Peppy Orchestra – Leader: Maracci (violin, sax, trombone); Roland Tibb (trumpet); Harry Hamilton (drums, sax); Don Flynn (piano); Charlie Pawlette (banjo); Fernie Quinn (sax, clarinet). AKA “Maracci’s Mean Melody Men”.
Frank Maracci’s Bluebirds – Leader: Maracci (violin, sax, trombone); William Sodeburg (piano); F. E. McComb (percussion); H. Zweifel (sax, clarinet); M.Seliger (sax, clarinet); M. Howell (trumpet). Played at Ambassador Cafe.
Melody Boys – Leader: Art Thomas (banjo); Billy Reeves (piano); Fernie Quinn (sax, clarinet); Ronald Tibb (cornet); Romeo Perry (percussion). Played Cotillion Dance Hall.
Alfredo Meunier and the New Capitolians – Members (aside from Meunier) unknown. Played the Capitol Theatre starting in 1929 (with Meunier first as “guest” conductor; later as the steady one) and into thee 1930s. Meunier was first described as “Italian” and later as “Portuguese”. Meunier took over from Calvin Winters with the Capitolians.
Morgan’s DeLuxe Players– Leader: Reg Morgan (drums); Carl Nelson (banjo); Ed Sasserville (sax); Bob Koehler (piano). The DeLuxe players probably played the Cafe DeLuxe (at 147 1/2 W. Hastings).
CVA 99-1233.1 – Moroan’s DeLuxe Orchestra ca1925. I assume that the players identified above are the same ones who appear in this photo, although it’s not possible for me to confirm whether pianist Koehler appears here, due to the outdoor location; he may have been one of the two sax players pictured).
Mark Morgan’s Orchestra (1922-24) – Leader: Morgan. Typically played at the Moose Hall (535 Homer) for dances.
Narrows Cafe Orchestra – Leader: Frank Hamilton (piano); Tug Wilson (trumpet); Harry Hamilton (percussion); H. Zwiefel (sax and clarinet); Frank Maracci (sax and violin).
Olympians – Leader: Victor Ross (piano); Leslie Hulme (drums); Jack McLean (sax); Frank Bolney (violin, banjo). 1925: Wally Griffiths (trumpet) and Bill McLean (sax) are then in; Jack McLean seems to be out.
The Originals (ca1929-?) – Leader: George Bush (banjo); Don McMillan (sax); Gil Mullen (piano); Len Inglesdy (violin); Jean Baker (drums); Jack Barlow (trumpet); Newton Keith (sousaphone). Played Lester Court in 1929.
The Originals. hand-painted sign ad. Courtesy of Tom Carter’s collection, n.d.
Original Orpheum Orchestea – Leader: Bill Pilling; Walter Euper (clarinet); E. A. “Ted” Jamie“son (percussion); A. H. Machler (flute); Josh Bewyer (trombone); Gerv Phillips (piano); E. W. “Mick” Hunt (trumpet); Percy Mexris (violin); Ralph Cox (cello); R. H. “Dick” Ward (contra bass).
Ozburn Steel Quartette – George H. Ozburn (leader); Charles Martin; Dominic Raine; Harold McPherson.
Pantages Vaudeville Orchestra – Leader: Frederick Brown; A. Osbaldeston (piano); George Keeling (bass); H. Stocker (clarinet); A. Delamont (trumpet); R. S. Ralph (trombone); Guy Jolly (percussion).
Pantages Pictures Orchestra – Leader: J. C. Switzer; M. Bryant (violin); W. A. Storey (piano); H. A. Pryce (cello); J. Belles (bass).
Parker’s Orchestra – Leader: W. E. Parker (trombone); Francis Collins (sax, trumpet, clarinet, banjo); George Jones (sax, clarinet); Sherlie Denhof (trumpet, sax); Polly Butler (piano); Spencer Adams (percussion). Played at the Breaker’s Cafe (556 Seymour).
Patricia Cabaret Orchestra – Leader: E. B. Austin (violin); F. M. Arstad (sax); E. M. Anderson (drums, xylophone); F. Nichols (piano).
George D. Peter and his Orchestra – Leader: Peter (piano); Charles See (sax, clarinet); Wally Griffiths (trumpet); Ernie Whiteside (drums). 1925: By this year, Whiteside was out; Art Clarke (drums) and W. W. Perks (banjo) were in. By later in 1925, Clarke and Perks were out; Billy Millachip (drums) was in.
Fernie Quinn and his Orchestra (1926) – Leader: Quinn (sax, clarinet); Jerry Hughes (piano); Bill Arstad (trombone, sax); Jack Prowse (drums); J. H. Wilson (trumpet, banjo). Played the Cotillion Dance Hall.
The Ramblers – Leader: Al Spencer (piano); Jack Towell (sax); H. Kenney (sax, clarinet); K. Roach (banjo); Les Aves (drums). The studio orchestra of Radio CJOR (which broadcast from their studio in the St. Julien Apartments (which would ultimately become the Ritz Hotel).
The Revellers (1928) – Teddy Duncan; Eddie Camel; George Gossen; Vincent Cashmore; Homer Woodworth.
Royal Theatre Orchestra – Leader: Alex Gray (piano); Patrick Adair (drums); L. McMahon (violin).
Eric Seaberg and his Orchestra – Leader: Eric Seaberg (sax); D. Raino (banjo); Billy Millachip (drums); Lawrence Crawford (violin); Jean Goodheart (piano).
Society Hoboes (ca1925) – Alf Hall (piano); Harry Coombs (sax); Leroy S. Harvey (percussion); D. Raino (banjo).
Art Thomas and His Melody Boys – Leader: Art Thomas (leader); Billy Reeves (piano); Fernie Queen (sax and clarinet); Ronald Tibb (cornet; arranger); Romeo Perry (percussion).
The Tickletoes – Leader: Eddie Bressler (piano); Charlie See (sax); Wally Perks (banjo); George Hackett (trumpet); George (Andy) Anderson (bass); Bev. White (drums); Len Chamberlain (sax). 1925; By this year, Hackett and Anderson were out. AKA “The Tickle Toes Orchestra.”
Time Kyllers (1926) – Bun Cooper (banjo); Art Wasey (bass); Newt Keith (piano); Nix Nixon (drums).
Frank Hamilton, 1922. Courtesy of Tom Carter’s collection.
Bill Tweedie’s Orchestra (ca1927) – Leader: Tweedie (piano); Eddie Morris (sax, clarinet); Nels Griffin (sax, clarinet); Bob Smith (drums); Ralph Johnson (trombone); Bert Prima (banjo); Dick Croft (tuba); Harry Mayfield (trumpet).
Sole Tyckler’s Orchestra – Leader: Orr Lee (piano); Fred Kenny (sax); Alan Fillier (banjo); Jack Prowse (drums).
Whytecliff Orchestra – Jack McLean (sax); Reggie Clay (banjo); Gordon Gibbons (drums); Bert Walmsley (piano).
Nick Williamson’s Pavilion Deluxe Orchestra – Leader: Williamson (violin); Carl Tossell (trumpet, sax); Alex Donaghy (banjo, sax); John McNair (drums); Bill Arstad (trombone); Len Holland (drums, xylophone, accordion, piano); Frank Mulgrew (piano).
Tug Wilson and his Live Bunch of Boys – Leader: H. J. “Tug” Wilson (trumpet, banjo); Bill Arstad (trombone); Jerry Hughes (piano); Jack Prowse (drums); Claude Hill (sax, clarinet). Played the Cotillion Dance Hall.
Windsor Theatre Orchestra – Leader: Alice M. Hale (piano); William Dove (percussion); J. Benn (violin).
Calvin Winter’s Orchestra (1921-22) – Leader: Winter. Played gigs at Cotillion Dance Hall (Davie and Granville). This group pre-dates Winter’s time leading the Capitol Theatre Symphony Orchestra (not included in this list).
Notes
*Principal source: BC Musician, a serial of the BC Musicians’ Mutual Protective Union, Local 145 of the American Federation of Musicians. These are available for reading on microfilm in the Special Collections room of VPL (Central Branch). Also consulted: Vancouver Daily World, Vancouver Sun, and The Province, History of Music in British Columbia. Dale McIntosh. Victoria: Sono-Nis Press, 1989. Tom Carter’s images, provided for this post, have been hugely helpful. Additional details provided by Robert Moan and Neil Whaley are gratefully acknowledged.
I didn’t know who Dominic Charlie was when I came across these photos of him in the “incarcerated persons” section of CVA’s files. Here, he was a man in his mid-20s who had been nabbed by the local constabulary.
He had a couple of booze-related charges in the early years of the 20th century. The first charge was in 1905, when he was fined $25 for possessing whisky (a much higher fine than that for actually drinking the stuff) (World, March 7, 1905). [1] He was charged again in 1910, when he was arrested for drunkenness, but he turned this to his advantage by pointing the finger of blame toward a Chinese gent by the name of Wing Sing who he said supplied him with Scotch. Sing earned three months hard labor on the charge of “supplying liquor to an aborigine.” Charlie got his freedom on a suspended sentence for pointing out Mr. Sing to police (Province, January 17 1910).
It isn’t clear on what charge Charlie was arrested in 1912. But after his 1912 arrest, it seems that Charlie was no longer subjected to liquor-related charges. By the 1920s, he was charged again. But this time, the charge became a test case of the Indian Act. Charlie was charged with spearing salmon in the Capilano River which passed through the land of the Squamish nation, of which Charlie was a member. It was Charlie’s position that the Indian Act superseded the authority of the Fisheries Department in North Vancouver, which claimed that native peoples didn’t have the right to spear salmon out of local waters, whether or not those waters ran through reserves. Charlie was ultimately found guilty of the charge on appeal, but the penalty was just $1.
Dominic Charlie in his native “Santa” outfit. Sun. 8 December 1948.
By December 1948, Charlie had transformed himself into the “first Indian Santa”, impersonating the elderly elf not by putting on a red suit and beard, but instead by donning a traditional headdress and jacket for the St. Paul’s Indian Christmas party (Sun. 8 December 1948).
By ca1952, Charlie was in his 60s and had become a chief of the Squamish people. Legal challenges were in his past, and he seemed content to be involved in native ceremonial events and to do the occasional (and, reportedly, pretty accurate) weather forecast using traditional methods. He worked at sawmills in the area until he turned 73.
There is a “Legend of the Sea Serpent of Burrard Inlet” as told by Charlie (along with other legends by others) here. Charlie was also a gifted artist who sculpted a 7-foot serpent that stood in West Vancouver on Marine Drive for many years.
When he was well into his 80s, Charlie began going to night school to gain some English reading and writing ability.
Charlie was born on Jericho Beach sometime in the 1880s. He died in 1972.
I came across Jean Archibald yesterday when I was at The Paper Hound Bookshop. Not in person, mind you. She died in 1974. But I encountered her through her bookplate on a book that I purchased. Kim Koch, one of the owners of The Paper Hound pointed out the bookplate to me and remarked that Jean might be a worthy subject for VAIW. I headed home and did a bit of research to see if there was enough information about Jean’s life to make it post-worthy; and, to my surprise, there was! There are relatively few biographical notes pertaining to women on this blog, so it is my great pleasure to present this one.
—
Jean Archibald’s (home-made?) bookplate. It was pasted in a collection of short fiction entitled A Century of Detective Stories, with an introduction by G.K. Chesterton. Her book collection seems to have consisted largely of true crime, sci-fi, cats and Egyptology.
Jean Campbell Archibald was born in 1911 in Vancouver, following the marriage of her parents, Arthur George Archibald and Muriel Mae Smith a year earlier. She was the eldest of six kids. While in Vancouver, A. G. Archibald was a shipper with F. R. Stewart & Co., a grocery supplier, and later a partner with Parkinson & Archibald Wholesale Fruit Merchants. Arthur died very young (age 49) in 1929.
There was a period between about 1915 and 1927 when the Archibalds were in Calgary (where her Dad was working with a dairy firm — possibly Foremost Dairy). Jean took most of her schooling there and in 1927, she was awarded a “gold medal” for achieving the highest marks among high school students in Alberta.
Following Arthur’s death shortly after the family moved back to the Lower Mainland from Alberta, Jean was tasked with raising her younger sibs and so had to abandon her plans of going to university. Her mother went to work raising chickens and selling the eggs.* Later, both women went to work for Bowman Storage. Oscar Bowman, the owner, was Muriel’s brother-in-law. Jean did secretarial and book-keeping work for Bowman; Muriel was a dispatcher. The women shared accommodation at the (still standing) Quebec Manor in Mount Pleasant.
CVA 99-5380 – Bowman Storage moving truck and driver in front of house at the corner of Hudson and Laurier Avenues. ca1918. Stuart Thomson. Bowman Storage was headquartered at 829 Powell Street at this time.
Vancouver News-Herald Jan 12 1952, Colin Haynes is in front row leftmost. He is with 9 other blind men who swam regularly at the YMCA pool.
It isn’t clear for certain how Jean met the man that she would marry. But I like to think that they met while serving together on the board of the Co-operative Society for the Visually Handicapped (a precursor to the CNIB?). In 1953, Colin Haynes was vice-president and Jean Archibald was secretary. Colin was blind (brought on by MS, apparently). They were married in Blaine, WA on November 23, 1955.
Jean died relatively young at age 62 in January 1974. Colin lived until 1980. Less than a year before her death, Jean had a letter printed in The Province in response to a query by a reader as to whether there was a local Sherlock Holmes club. I reproduce her letter below. I think it represents a clue as to her true range of literary interests beyond what is available today to an amateur biographer:
Courtesy: Shawna Archibald, Jean’s niece, n.d.
I wonder if your reader is thinking of the Baker Street Irregulars, a group formed in the 1920s and, as far as I know, continuing today. The group published the Baker Street Journal from New York. To become a member one had to write a thesis dealing with some aspect of Holmes’ career and these stories were printed in the journal. I don’t believe there is a Vancouver branch but it would be fun to have one.
— Jean C. Haynes, Vancouver
Province, 10 March 1973
Notes
*My thanks to Shawna Archibald, niece of Jean for her help in filling in some details pertaining to Jean’s life and for supplying the photographic portrait of Jean shown above.
CVA 1399-390 – Photo of Leonard’s Cafe on West Hastings near Granville St. 192- A1 Commercial photo. Leonard’s Coffee Palace had by this time (the 1920s) become Leonard’s Cafe and the roof garden apparently had been filled in.
Until I began to research this subject, I’d assumed that the first and only public rooftop garden was the one atop the Hotel Vancouver #2 at the SW corner of Georgia and Granville.
But I was quite mistaken.
Leonard’s Cafe
The business which has the distinction of having the first rooftop garden in the city wasn’t a hotel — it was a cafe; or to describe the establishment as the proprietor did in the City Directory, it was Leonard’s Coffee Palace near the SW corner of West Hastings and Granville. They had another outlet at the Hastings Arcade (at the NW corner of Hastings and Cambie; the Dominion building stands there today). The Leonard’s outlet with the rooftop garden was established in 1906.
The Province blew the city’s ‘horn’, along with Leonard’s, with a ‘call and response’ introduction to their article on the opening of the roof garden:
“Come, let’s go to the roof garden.”
“Roof garden? Where? Didn’t know Vancouver had one.”
“Oh, yes, Vancouver is a city of progress; has everything that any of your cities in the East have, and the latest of these is the roof garden.”
Province, 12 May 1906
Indeed, the newspaper made so bold as to borrow from Babylon in describing the cafe as having the “hanging gardens of Vancouver.”
For all of this presumed hyperbole, however, very little was said about the decor on the roof. Nothing was said of the types of plants in the garden. In fact, the only thing that was said of the roof garden pertained to the view. It evidently had a northern outlook, as the “excellent view of the inlet” was extolled (World, 11 May 1906).
Most of the description was given over to detailing the various beverages which were available on the roof: everything, apparently, from punches, frappes, egg drinks, and “fancy beverages” (which included such exotic-sounding delights as “Cupid’s Idea” and a “Maringo Flip”). Most of these were 10-15 cents a serving.
Leonard’s cafe rooftop garden seems not to have lasted long. I suspect this was due to questions of efficiency. Patrons were likely to sit and order drinks from the uncovered roof only on warm, sunny days. The number of such days in Vancouver are relatively few.
David Spencer’s
CVA 7-4 – Mrs. Catherine Quiney, her family and friends on David Spencer’s roof garden. ca 1910 James Luke Quiney photo.
Next to jump on the roof garden band wagon, in 1908, was Spencer’s Vancouver department store, just a couple blocks up Hastings from Leonard’s. From what is visible in the photo of Spencer’s roof above, their garden appears to have been rather underwhelming. All that is visible are a few planters filled with somewhat ragged-looking plants.
The World said of the new roof garden:
There are two passenger elevators and one freight lift. The Elevators will travel to the roof where, according to present arrangements, a roof garden will be installed where ladies can leave the children in safety while shopping.
World, 2 May 1908
Vancouver’s Edwardians had different notion than today’s post-millennial parents as to what was “safe” for kiddies, I think. Sticking your bairn on the roof, with little in the way of fencing to keep them safe from taking a tumble probably wouldn’t be embraced today!
Spencer’s roof garden seems to have been mothballed by sometime in the 1930s. The final ad mentioning the garden was in 1929 (Province, 10 June 1929).
Interestingly, a rooftop garden was never set up at the downtown Vancouver Hudson’s Bay Co. department store. And it seems to have been the 1940s before Woodward’s established a “sun deck” on their Vancouver store’s roof (see below).
CVA 586-4026 – Woodward Stores Limited sun deck on roof of store on the corner of Hastings Street and Abbot Street. 1945. Don Coltman photo.
The Palace Hotel (North Vancouver)
CVA 371-778 – Exterior of the Palace Hotel (2nd Street, 1 block from Lonsdale Ave.), North Vancouver. ca1911. Roof Garden appears to be located on the back side of the Hotel, where the wooden superstructure appears.
Province, 23 May 1910. Grand Opening of the Roof Garden. In this photo, folks appear to be seated on the front edge of the roof. Whether the garden extended this far is unknown.
The Palace Hotel in North Vancouver was the next in line [1]. The North Vancouver structure was under construction by ca1906. But it wasn’t until 1910 that the roof garden was finished and ready for opening (Province, 23 May 1910). The roof feature was described in ads as being a “very special added attraction and “brilliantly lighted” at night.
In June 1909, a reception was held to formally celebrate the opening of the Palace. Most of the celebration seemed to be focussed on the roof garden. There was a live orchestra on the roof: Harpur’s Orhcestra, a band described in an earlier post (Province, 22 June 1909).
The Palace (after 1949, the Olympic) Hotel was demolished in 1989. [2]
Hotel Vancouver #2
PAN N120A – [View of the second Hotel Vancouver’s roof garden] July 1916. W. J. Moore photo.
VPL 21578 – Hotel Vancouver roof garden. 1923. Dominion Photo Co.
The 1916-established Hotel Vancouver roof garden was by no means the first roof garden in Greater Vancouver, but there was no debate that as far as bling per square foot was concerned, it was unrivaled. This was a real garden. There were impressive trellises on which were vines and there were also (in season) roses. In its ads, the hotel wasn’t satisfied describing the roof garden as being the best in B.C. nor even the best in Canada. No, it was touted as nothing less than the “finest Roof Garden on the Continent”. And who could challenge such an undefined claim?
The Hotel Vancouver, brieflyevidently, even had rooftop golf links! It was announced in June 1916 that
Outside of New York city, there is probably no other town in America that has a roof-garden golf links. Winnipeg had an indoor golf links and so has Vancouver. The local indoor golf links are located in the basement of the Hotel Vancouver, but the management is now considering installing an apparatus similar to the one used for indoor golf on the roof of the Hotel Vancouver. The added advantage[s] of having the links on the roof are many, but the chief one is that the players will be out in the open air.
Sun, 3 June 1916
I am not aware of any photographs (nor press articles) pertaining to either the HV’s basement nor its rooftop links (if ever management decided in favour of establishing roof-based golf). I have to wonder about insurance issues should players on the roof have balls go over the edge and land on pedestrians and automobiles below!
The rooftop garden of Hotel Vancouver was demolished with the rest of the structure in 1948.
Notes
There was a Palace Hotel in Vancouver at one time, too. It was located where the Merchant Bank later was — at the NW corner of Carrall and Hastings. The Vancouver Palace later moved down Hastings a bit, just a couple doors west of the Rex Theatre.
The claim was made in the North Shore News in 2020 that the Palace had B.C.’s “first rooftop garden”. We’ve established above that that claim was mistaken. However, it may have been the province’s first hotel roof garden.
I’m not going to devote much text to this post; it is a slideshow, for the most part. The photos are my own made in Greater Vancouver over the past ten years. The photos have a story to tell; the story is about rapid redevelopment in the Metro area.
Some for better, some not so much.
The Security guy shown here is guarding the gate to the parking garage that formerly was at the SE corner of Cordova at Granville. This structure was demolished in 2019. It will be replaced by the Bosa Waterfront residential condo (currently under construction). August 2015. MDM photo.
This is a view from inside the Commerce Bank at the SW corner of Hastings at Hamilton as it was being demolished. Dressew is visible (yellow awning) across the street. The bank has been replaced by an SFU campus: Charles Chang Innnovation Centre. This is the site where the plaque commemorating the location of the first city survey stake was placed in 1952 (and lost when the building was demolished.) It has not been replaced. February 2015. MDM photo.
The Vancouver Antique Mall is no longer at 422 Richards, but happily, the building that it occupied is. This building housed the Bank of B.C., Pitman College, and assorted other businesses over the years. August 2015. MDM photo.
It may surprise you to know that this classic directional sign is no longer near the corner of Georgia at Howe (across the street from the Hotel Georgia). The sign was quietly removed during a recent re-do to Art Gallery landscaping. March 2015. MDM photo.
This media booth (which was intended to be a temporary structure) was erected at the Vancouver Convention Centre for the 2015 FIFA Soccer match. It was demolished after FIFA was over. June 2015. MDM photo.
This ‘ghost sign’ was uncovered in 2012 at the SW corner of Robson at Granville. It showed a 1922 ad for the Harold Lloyd film “Grandma’s Boy” which was playing across Granville at the Capitol Theatre. The ad was painted on an exterior wall of the Power Building and was hidden the next year (1923) when the Farmer Building went up at the corner of Robson/Granville. The wall, together with the ad, were lost when the wall was demolished by Ledcor — the modern developer of the site — just two weeks after the sign was discovered. March 2012. MDM photo.
This New Westminster Gas Works (231 12th Street, NW) was demolished in 2018 by order of the City of New Westminster. It was in very poor shape and probably it was time for it to be demolished. But I still look for it whenever my Skytrain goes past the site. December 2015. MDM 2015.
This shows the footings of previous buildings nearby the NE corner of West Hastings near Granville. The building just visible at the top of the image is today’s Birk’s building. One of the businesses that stood on this block was Trorey’s jewellers (a predecessor of Birk’s Brothers). Oct 2015. MDM photo.
CVA Bu P315 – Exterior of the Ferguson Building – S.W. corner of Hastings and Richards Streets. ca1889. C S Bailey photo.
There was a time, evidently, in Vancouver’s distant past, when office space wasn’t at a premium in the downtown core. The building shown above was developed by and named in honour of A. G. Ferguson in late 1888. When I first saw this photo, I assumed that both of the upper stories of the block were always for office space. But I had reason to change my mind — slowly — over the course of several days of research.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
What caused me to look into the Ferguson Building were three words that I noticed while browsing the 1889 city directory: “res, The Shack”.
Reference to a “shack” in early city directories was typically derogatory and was often accompanied by the word “Chinese”. Also typically, buildings so described were of wood frame construction and weren’t meant to endure for long.
But The Shack seemed to be a residence that was quite different — mainly because of the residents. My search for listings of residents of The Shack revealed that they seemed typically to be of “occidental” heritage (versus oriental) and that they were all gainfully employed in good jobs, in several instances by the CPR. Here is a list of the residents of The Shack with their occupations:
G. McL. Brown, Ticket Agent, CPR
A. H. Buchanan, Accountant, Bank of Montreal
Allan Cameron, Clerk, General Freight and Passenger Department, CPR
H. E. Connor, Local Freight Agent, CPR
Albert John Dana, Purchasing Agent, CPR
A. O. Leask, Leask & Johnston
S. O. Richards, Barrister, Innes & Richards
H. B. Walkem, Assistant Engineer, CPR
Samuel McLean, Steward of The Shack (the manager of the residence?)
Ote’ Ki, Assistant, The Shack (an Asian person — judging from the name — who was assistant to the manager?)
Where was 419 Richards? I needed a photo of the place, preferably ca 1889 for this “Photo-Historical Journey”! This proved difficult. The odd-numbered side of the 400 block of Richards was evidently close to the SW corner of Richards and Hastings. But the only structure at that corner in 1889, as far as I could tell from City of Vancouver Archives photographs, was the A. G. Ferguson building. That couldn’t be the site of The Shack, could it? After all, it appeared to be constructed of brick? Weren’t shacks in Vancouver typically wood frame and of impermanent appearance?
It turned out that The Shack had to be part of the Ferguson block. There were no other logical contenders. I believe the entry to The Shack at 419 Richards was a few steps up Richards from Hastings (see annotation to the photo above).
But some sort of proof that The Shack was located at the Ferguson would be nice. I finally found the nearest thing to proof that I could get from the World:
On the corner of Richards Street, is the elegant A. G. Ferguson Block, approaching completion . . . . The building has a frontage of 78 feet on Hastings and runs back 73 feet on Richard[s]. It consists of three stories, with a fine entrance in the centre, the entrance to the offices and rooms upstairs being on Richard[s] Street. The height from the floor level to the ceiling on the ground floor is 16 feet. The first floor offices have a height of 14 feet from the floor level to the ceiling, the next flight above being so arranged as to be used for sleeping apartments.
Daily World, 31 December 1888 (emphasis mine)
So, if I’m reading the newspaper account accurately, I take it that The Shack was located on the top floor of Ferguson.
The Shack seems to have lasted for just a single year (1889). By 1890, I assume, the demand for office space had ramped up and the floor which had housed The Shack was renovated to be suitable for the working lives of office dwellers.
The Ferguson building was demolished sometime between 1904 and 1910. It was sold by A. G. Ferguson’s estate the year after his passing in California in 1903. The Weart Building (which still stands) was constructed in its place in 1910-11.
This post is about David Spencer, Ltd. This was a now-long-gone but once much-loved B.C. department store chain with a store located in downtown Vancouver, which most residents of the city today know as the locations of Harbour Centre tower and Simon Fraser University’s first downtown Vancouver campus.
I make no pretence to present anything approaching a complete history of the store. I’m just ‘noodling around the edges’ of the Spencer’s story in an effort to present a few details that were unknown by me until recently; some of which, perhaps, were unknown to you, too.¹
What’s in a Name?
Spencer’s, as it was typically called, was formally known as “David Spencer, Ltd.” David (1837-1920) was president of the firm when it was established in Vancouver; it had existed in Victoria for several years prior to its 1907 debut in Vancouver. Spencer’s would continue in business until it was bought by T. Eaton Co. in 1948.
Spencer’s was known by a couple of other handles during the years it was in Vancouver. In the 1907 city directory, it called itself “David Spencer’s Dry Goods Merchants and Manufacturers, Home and Hotel Furnishers”. So originally, it didn’t describe itself as a “department store”.
By 1910, it was referring to itself a bit differently. In the city directory of that year it described itself as: “General Merchants, Home and Hotel Furnishers” and also referred to the shop as being a “Departmental Store”. By that year, their property had also grown to include a good deal of the south side of 500-block Cordova St. in addition to the healthy chunk of the north side of Hastings which it had originally bought. They then also owned 516-536 Cordova.
There is a reproduction of this block from Van Map below which shows, overlaid, the 1912 Goad’s Fire Insurance Map. It isn’t completely clear to me whether the Cordova and Hastings properties were connected at that time through some sort of of upper-story bridge, as has been the case over the years with other downtown properties (e.g., the Orpheum Theatre), or whether it was necessary for customers to exit one property and re-enter another (as with the Army & Navy store on East Hastings).
By the time the 1920 city directory was published, the way that Spencer’s referred to itself had changed to simply “Departmental Store”. But as their name became shorter, their appetite for real estate increased. By that year, they had grown to include much of the city block: 507-541 Hastings and 520-530 Cordova.
(CVA 789-76. Hastings and Richards. 1916.) 500-block of West Hastings.
There was another name associated with Spencer’s of which I was unaware until informed by my friend, Gordon Poppy²: it was also known as the “Diamond S”. I’m unsure of the origin of this name or how/when exactly it came to be applied in reference to the store. But it is clear that it was in use in external communication with customers as early as 1926 (see the first image in the next section of this post). It seems to have been a public relations tool employed by the store to speak of the “diamond” quality standard customers could expect of their wares and service. The cover of the Fall/Winter catalogue, 1928-29, shown immediately below speaks to this.
Spencer’s 1928-29 Fall/Winter Catalogue. (Courtey: Gordon Poppy).
Re-Development ‘Eyes’ Exceed Capacity?
By 1926, Spencer’s had acquired all of the property it needed to redevelop their several buildings into a single, mammoth ‘new’ building. An artist’s conception of what management had in mind for this new structure appears below on the front cover of the 1926 Spring/Summer catalogue.
Spencer’s 1926 Spring/Summer Catalogue, front cover. (Courtesy: Gordon Poppy). Showing an artistic rendering of the anticipated “new Vancouver store now under construction.” Spencer’s never actually looked as it appears above.
By the time construction of the new building was finished at the end of 1926, the artistic conception of the structure and reality clearly were different. Compare the image above with the one below (a photograph made in the 1930s).
(CVA 1495-32. 193- ). The actual ‘new’ building on the corner of Hastings and Richards.
Why did the managers of Spencer’s choose to scale down their 1926 ambitions for a full-block Spencer’s emporium? That isn’t clear to me. Gordon Poppy has suggested (and this was my original thought, as well) that it was due to the stock market crash and the consequent Great Depression that followed. The problem with that hypothesis, however, is that the timing doesn’t work. Construction on the new building began in early 1926; it was finished (with a smaller structure than originally planned) by the end of 1926 or (at latest) early 1927. The stock market crash, however, happened in October, 1929; that puts the crash a good two years into the future from when Spencer’s managers had to have decided to go with a smaller building. So it seems safe to rule out the stock market crash as the stimulus for downsizing Spencer’s ambitious 1926 plan.
My best guess is that management decided that the cost of linking all of their properties under a single roof was simply too expensive.
(CVA 99-2271. ca 1926. Stuart Thomson photo). This is the only image I could find that shows the new Spencer’s building under construction (on north side of Hastings at Richards).
Native Figure ‘Standing’ on Hastings Canopy
The native ‘welcome’ figure shown below was fastened atop the canopy at the Hastings entry to the new building in 1936 (beneath the vertical Spencer’s sign), during Vancouver’s Diamond Jubilee. Today, the figure is part of the collection of the Royal BC Museum (Victoria). At the feet of the figure there is a note that an “Indian Exhibit” was located on the 5th floor of the store in that year.
(Courtesy: Gordon Poppy. Photographer unknown). [1936]. Note the “S” enclosed in a diamond at the bottom of the vertical Spencer’s sign above the arcade canopy on Hastings St. The first “S” in the name (not visible above) was likewise enclosed in a diamond shape. (Note: VPL has a photo that seems to be identical to this one. That photo identifies the photographer as Leonard Frank).
Neo-Roman Speculations
The view shown below is looking at the NE corner of Spencer’s, at Seymour and Hastings. There is a building just beyond the Molson’s/Seymour block which has a neo-Roman appearance.
(CVA 586-4015. Sept 1945. Don Coltman photo). This is a view of the NE corner of Seymour at Hastings (of the Molson’s block of Spencer’s, in the foreground), taken in the days immediately following the end of WW2.
According to the city directory for 1945, there are only two candidates that could then have occupied this building: an ice cream shop or the Spencer’s flower shop. The building looks like too serious a structure to have housed an ice cream shop; so I’m concluding, tentatively, that it was home to Spencer’s floristry department, in this period.
I’ve noticed that this building is just visible in shots made as early as 1906 on VPL’s historical photo site. There are no hints in city directories of that time as to what the building was; this caused me to speculate whether, early in the history of the Molson block, this may have been a Seymour St. entry to Molsons (sort of a back door?)
If anyone can add any facts regarding what the neo-Roman structure was, I’d appreciate hearing from you via a comment to this post.
(VPL 5196. Molson’s Bank at NE Seymour & Hastings. 1906. P T Timms photo).
(CVA 180-0401. Spencer’s Flower Shop floral display at the Pacific National Exhibition (PNE). 1932).
Window Displays
Displays produced by Spencer’s for their windows were, in my opinion, the best around, bar none. (Compare with a window produced by one of their competitors, Hudson’s Bay Co., here, for example). In terms of creativity, material, and time invested, it is difficult, even today, for me to look at Spencer’s windows with anything but awe.
(CVA 1495-12. 1926. Harry Bullen photo). The “arcade” below the vertical “Spencer’s” signage on Hastings St. (at the ‘new’ building.
For natural displays, like the Easter scene shown below, “we used real landscaping: grass, flowers, etc.,” said Gordon Poppy. He also noted that their mannequins were wax, eyes were made of glass, and eyebrows were composed of human hair.
(CVA 1495-36. 193-. Dominion Photo). A view into the short side of the island window.
Easter Scene at Spencer’s. Dominion Photo (Colour). n.d. A view through a long side of the island window. Courtesy: Gordon Poppy.
²Gordon began his working life as a Spencer’s employee. I’ll allow him to tell the story of his early working years: “I started working for David Spencer, Ltd. on July 3rd, 1945 as a summer job. I had been taking a course on display and sign-writing from Frank Vase at the Vancouver School of Display at nights, while I was at high school attending Vancouver Technical School. As Spencer’s had always had the reputation for the best displays in the city, I was glad to get this opportunity to work there. VE Day had just passed, and one of the first windows that I was involved with was the VJ Day displays. I was asked if I would consider staying on in the fall. As I needed two more years of high school, I stayed on at Spencer’s and completed my schooling by attending King Edward School (at Oak and 12th) at night, while working in the daytime. . . . I continued with David Spencer’s until the chain was bought by the T. Eaton Co. in late 1948. Most of the employees continued on with the new owners. I stayed on until 1991 with Eaton’s.”
207-43 – “Grocery Hall of Fame” 1241 Homer Street. Nov 1982. Elizabeth Walker photo.
In 1979, a Grocery Hall of Fame was established in Yaletown at 1241 Homer Street. The founder was Bill Spaner. He was then (and, evidently, still is) a food broker with a business called Tempo Sales. The Curator of the Hall was Cal McLeod. Tempo Sales and the Hall shared the site, with the Hall being open at no charge only on Sundays, initially, and Tempo being Spaner’s for-profit concern on other days of the week.
The Hall of Fame was a museum of grocery-related artifacts. These included (to name just a few) labels, tins, advertisements, posters, magazines, wartime ration books and coupons, kitchen utensils, and soft drink dispensers.
The Homer Street site opened in May 1979 after Spaner convinced the City not to demolish the 70-year-old rooming house on the property, called the Glenholme. The Hall of Fame had earlier been located at a decidedly poor location: Annacis Island! (Province, 10 July 1983). He bought the Homer Street building and land for what today seems like a phenomenal bargain: $175,000! It cost him twice that to remodel the building (Sun, 24 September 1979).
CVA 207-44 – Elek Imredy (sculptor of the iconic “Girl in a Wetsuit” at Stanley Park) and old time clock during Vancouver Historical Society tour of Grocery Hall of Fame. Nov 1982. Elizabeth Walker.
Spaner grew up in Winnipeg and came to Vancouver when he was 16. He worked as a displayman for Canada Packers and later became promotions manager for Puritan Foods. He and a partner began Tempo Sales in 1967 and he bought out his partner’s share of the business in 1972 (Sun, 15 May 1981).
CVA 207-46 – Frank Williams and Jill Rowland during Vancouver Historical Society tour of Grocery Hall of Fame. Nov 1982. Elizabeth Walker.
There are a number of images in the City of Vancouver Archives of members of the Vancouver Historical Society visiting the Grocery Hall of Fame in November 1982 (three of which are reproduced here). The photos were made by Elizabeth Walker, former President of the Vancouver Historical Society (1962-63), former head of the local history division at Vancouver Public Library, and author of the invaluable Street Names of Vancouver (1999).
It isn’t completely clear what it was that motivated Spaner to move the Hall of Fame out of Yaletown, but move it he did by 1990. I suspect that he was offered a lot of money by the condominium development that is today on the site of the former museum.
The Grocery Hall of Fame moved initially (in 1990) to 9500 Van Horne Way in Richmond and later to the rear of Spaner’s residential property at 6620 No. 6 Road. As of 2014, Tempo Sales was still in business at No. 6 Road. There is some evidence that the Hall of Fame continues to operate today at the same location, but it is hard to be sure whether it has survived COVID-19.
If any VAIW reader can confirm the current status of the Grocery Hall of Fame, I’d appreciate it if you would comment below.
This photograph (CVA Wat P38) was the work of Lauchlan A. Hamilton. In my judgement, it is one of the most attractive early images available from the digital collection of the City of Vancouver Archives (CVA).
Mr Hamilton lived in Vancouver for fewer than five years, but those years were important, as was his contribution. He was Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) land commissioner during a period in which the CPR had a lot of authority and he became one of the first aldermen of Vancouver’s Council. As land commissioner, he surveyed and named Vancouver streets in the central business district and the West End (including, immodestly, Hamilton Street).
Where was Mr Hamilton standing when he made this image, vis-a-vis today’s Vancouver? If you walk behind the Vancouver Convention Centre to the seaplane terminal at the far western end of the pedestrian walkway and look toward Brockton Point at Stanley Park, you are probably as close as you can get today (without getting wet).
There were some surprises for me in this image of Brockton Point. The first was that it is attributed to Mr Hamilton. This is one of only two digital photos in the CVA collection (other than a couple of family snapshots) that are attributed to him. I believe he made several drawings and watercolours that are in the CVA’s non-digital collection. So he was an amateur artist, evidently, but not a recognized amateur photographer. There are a good many un-attributed photographs in CVA’s digital collection from the period that Mr Hamilton lived in Vancouver, however. So who knows how many of those ought rightly to be attributed to him?
Another surprise was that there were so few mature trees in what would become Stanley Park (in 1888). I shouldn’t have been surprised by this, however, as it is well known that in the pre-Park years (1860s-1880s), it was logged aggressively.
There also appears to be evidence of settlement of some sort in what would become the Park. It is pretty far in the background and so is quite fuzzy, but there appear to be temporary (tent-like?) structures along the shore. I believe a military reserve was established there during the 1860s, and there was likely still some native settlement there in the 1880s.
Hamilton managed to convey with his camera a scene that might very well have been painted. And the age of the image (nearly 130 years, now) has done the image a favour; with the passing of time, the emulsion near the surface of the photo has begun to break down a bit, thereby creating what would be referred to in complimentary terms, in antique painting circles, as a “crackle finish”.
2008-010.2265 – Chinese Tennis Club group portrait at their first location just south of the CNR Railway Depot (now known as Pacific Central Depot). The gent seated in front row, center, wearing a clerical collar is presumably Rev. Ivan Wong, Club secretary in 1940 (and pastor to the United Church Chinese Mission at East Pender and Dunlevy). Photo made 1939.
A brief chronology of the Chinese Tennis Club:
1936: Chinese Tennis Club was established. The Club was affiliated with the B.C. Lawn and Tennis Association. The Club played other clubs in that association (including Jericho and Stanley Park clubs) and also played other pacific coast clubs (including cities in the so-called tri-cities (Vancouver, Seattle, and Portland). Original membership of Club was about 20-25.
1937: Club had 63 members.
1938: Club had four clay courts just south of the CNR Depot; the court site was presumably leased from Canadian National Railway. The courts seem to have been located roughly where long-distance buses park today at Pacific Central Depot. The Vancouver Chinese Tennis Club was the only Chinese tennis club to have its own courts among Pacific coast cities.
1939: Membership: 80
1941: New courts and clubhouse at 550 Carrall Streeet were ready in July. According to the Charles Louie interview cited below, all of the funds for materials were raised by the Club and the labour on the courts and clubhouse was done by Club members.
1946 (Vancouver’s Diamond Jubilee Year): Pacific Coast Chinese Tennis Championships were held in June at the Club courts on Carrall Street. Players from San Francisco, Portland, and Seattle participated. The tournament was officially opened by Chinese Consul-General to Vancouver, Hon. Li Chao and Vancouver Mayor Jack Cornett (Sun, 29 June 1946).
1949: Late in the year, the Club was disbanded. This was due to City of Vancouver expropriation of the land on which the clubhouse and courts were situated in order to extend Keefer Street through to Carrall Street. (I suspect, but cannot prove, that a contributing reason was the development of part of the site by the new Marshall-Wells wholesale hardware). The Dr. Sun Yat Sen Garden was situated approximately at the same location as the Chinese Tennis Club when it was opened in 1986.
One of the great constants among those on the executive of the Chinese Tennis Club was Charles E. Louie (1908-1977). He was President of the Club from its inception until it disbanded. Jack Chan was another regular member of the executive. He was for several years the Club’s tennis instructor.
The Club would each year hold a season opening and closing dinner/dance, often at the White Rose Ballroom, and occasionally at the Peter Pan Ballroom (both on West Broadway).
2008-010.2271 – Second (and final) Chinese Tennis Club site at 550 Carrall Street. Near the site of the future Dr. Sun Yat Sen Garden (578 Carrall Street, 1986-present). ca1941.
Sources:
Audio interview with Charles E. Louie, November 1976 on the Pender Guy radio program (No. 98A). Beginning at the 17.15 point in the program.
Ernest Augustus Muling (1861-1949) was a Frenchman by birth (in Blumenau), an Englishman by nationality, and a chef by profession.
He came to Vancouver from Brisbane, Australia where he seems to have spent his twenties and early thirties and where his first two children were born (May and Madeleine, also known as Madge); Ernest’s wife, Annie (1868-1942) was born in England.
His career in Vancouver was on-again-off-again. He would work for a year or more at a hotel or hotel restaurant, and then he would be described for a year or two subsequently (in the Vancouver directory) as a “caterer” — restaurant lingo, I presume, for “self-employed”.
His first experience of the restaurant business in Vancouver was at the Strand Hotel‘s King Edward Silver Grill (ca1905-06). The Strand was mid-way down the south side of the 600 block of West Hastings. He was catering (and traveling in Europe for a few months in 1907) during the 1907-11 period. (A June 1912 clipping noted that Ernest Muling had recently “assumed charge of the Wigwam Inn” (World, 17 June 1912); however, this seems to be the only claim in the local press of this and so I’m assuming it was either a very short-lived appointment or was a press error).
In 1912, Ernest was the proprietor of the Trocadero Grill. The Trocadero was on the south side of the 100 block of West Hastings (at 156 W. Hastings). He catered in 1913.
He was the proprietor of the Langham Hotel at 1115 Nelson Street in 1914. The Langham was what we’d call today a “boutique” hotel. Located just west of Thurlow on Nelson, the charming little hotel building (and its single family dwelling neighbours) is no longer there; in its place today is a concrete multi-residential behemoth.
Starting in 1915, Ernest had moved on to the Grosvenor Hotel Cafe. The Grosvenor was at the SE corner of Howe at Robson. He remained there until 1917/18.While he was working at the Grosvenor, the Mulings lived there. In 1919, he catered again.
CVA 780-415 – Buildings along Nelson Street at Thurlow Street, including the Langham Hotel (the three-storey brick building in foreground). 1966.
In 1920, Ernest was a chef with the Canadian Pacific Railway. What precisely this meant is opaque to me. Whether it meant he was cooking for the staff of the CPR, working in one of the CPR’s public eating establishments, or cooking on a train, isn’t clear.
The CPR job seems to have been his final one in Vancouver. There is no further record in the city of Ernest, Annie, May (or the two boys who came later: Edward, who apprenticed with BC Electric Railway for a couple of years and who seems to have gone to California, dying in San Francisco; and Richard, who took up work as an electrician while in Vancouver).
Mrs. Muling, for at least a couple of their early years in Vancouver (1908-09), seems to have been the first manager of the Gresham rooming house at SW corner of Granville and Smithe. The rooming house was built in 1907-08 and began operation in late 1908 (Province, 12 December 1908). The Gresham is still known by that name and is at that location, today.
While living here, the Mulings participated in dog shows with their dachshund, “Tackle”, on at least one occasion winning best in show for that breed (Sun, 11 Oct 1912).
By 1921, the Muling family seems to have pulled up stakes.* They ended up in Australia again. Whether they went there directly or took a more circuitous route, isn’t clear to me. But most of the family, including Ernest, appear to have died in Camberwell (a suburb of Melbourne, today).
VPL 7601 – Grosvenor Hotel at Howe & Robson Streets. 1915. P. T. Timms photo.
Notes
*Madeleine (aka Madge) married Charles Simpson Scott in Vancouver. She seems to have been the one Muling to have “stuck” here. She died at the ripe age of 93 in 1989 in North Vancouver.
Publicity Postcard: Kolster Musicians – CKWX Radio, Vancouver. n.d. (1929?) K. G. McKenzie (619 Granville) photo. The announcer standing at the microphone is CKWX manager/announcer, Harold W. Paulson. MDM Collection.
Publicity Postcard: Kolster’s Musicians (rear of postcard shown above with notes).
The eight-person musical group shown above is Kolster’s Musicians. They were a group of Vancouver people who were assembled to play music on CKWX Radio (Vancouver) for their principal sponsor, Kolster Radios. Kolster was a U.S. brand radio, distributed in B.C. by the Canadian Fairbanks-Morse Company, Ltd.
The program always includes a bright march, an overture, a late popular release as well as a group of popular numbers of a few years ago . . . . [T]he listener is therefore treated to a splendid variety of music . . .
Sun, 14 Sept 1929
An identifiable member of Kolster’s Musicians seems to be pianist and band leader (later the musical director of CKWX’s Concert Orchestra), Harold A. Copley (ca1893-1941) (Province, 6 July 1930). Copley was was formerly the organist at St. Saviour’s Church (Sun, 14 Sept 1929).
The host pictured at the CKWX microphone was Harold W. Paulson (1899-1983), “director and chief announcer” at the radio station (Sun, 25 Aug 1928).
The others shown in the photo are not identifiable by me. If readers of VAIW recognize someone pictured, please let me know by commenting below.
CVA 99-3810 – Fairbanks Morse – Kolster Radio Window ca1930 Stuart Thomson.
CVA 586-1578 – Captain J. H. Palmer, the founder of The Ancient Mariner Rope and Canvas, engaged in making what appears to be a scramble-net or cargo-net. 1943? Don Coltman photo.
It is an ancient Mariner, And he stoppeth one of three ‘By thy long grey beard and glittering eye, Now wherefore stopp’st thou me?
As far as I know, none of the proprietors of the Ancient Mariner Rope and Canvas shop had long grey beards, but I’m not so sure that they didn’t all have glittering eyes, especially when the time seemed apt to spin a seafaring tale.
Captain J. H. Palmer, the founder of the Ancient Mariner shop at 225 Carrall Street (near ‘Blood Alley’ and Maple Tree Square in Gastown) established the business ca1941. He lived in the back of the shop. He was a “master craftsman” at rope splicing and in his shop he made ship’s bumpers, rigging, ladders, lifebuoys, and nets.
James Harvey Palmer was born in Amherst, Nova Scotia [1] ca1870 to Jacob Nelson and Naomi Allan Palmer. His father, grandfather, and great-grandfather, according to Palmer, were also sea captains. Palmer first went to sea at age 15 (ca1885) and by age 19, “he became the youngest second mate in sail on the east coast” He got his master’s ticket (his first captaincy) in Seattle in 1906 (Province, 8 June 1949).
2009-005.462 – Ancient Mariner Rope Works, located in Gastown during World War II 1939-45. W. M. Seivewright (right) and Captain James Palmer (left).
When Palmer established Ancient Mariner Rope and Canvas during WWII, he had at least one assistant. Captain D. J. McDonald was among the earliest. Another was William M. Seivewright, who became a local journalist.
Captain Dan McDonald. The Province, 26 November 1962. Gordon Sedawie, photo.
Palmer had an injury to one of his hands in 1955 and no doubt found that cramped his style as a rope-maker (Sun, 31 December 1955). He sold the business ca1956 to William H. S. Wilson and Captain R. G. Lawson [2]. Lawson died in 1958. By 1962, the Ancient Mariner had adapted to the changing market and was then producing nylon helicopter nets which could handle 2-ton loads of supplies dropped at remote forestry camps. Captain Dan McDonald was still helping out at the Ancient Mariner in 1962 (and, of course, sharing his shipping yarns with whoever would listen; there are a few examples of McDonald’s seafaring tales below).
The business seems to have faded to black by the mid-1960s. Bill Wilson died in 1969.
Steve Roper, Publishers Syndicate. Province, 12 April 1958. Here is a Rime of the Ancient Mariner allusion in comic form. By the way, for those of you who think that the ‘bad guy’, Twitch, is handing Steve a mini-TV, that is actually a camera (a little larger than an iPhone)! (As for the hint as to how the camera could be used as a weapon, I suspect that had to do with the flashbulb that was part of it; to temporarily ‘blind’ Twitch.)
Notes
Palmer’s early years are a bit mysterious. In the 1909 U.S. Census he claimed that he had dual citizenship and shows both his parents as being born in Maine. In a 1918 US Passport application, Palmer claims that he was born in Brooklyn, N.Y. in 1870. He was at the time, according to this application, a “Constructing Engineer” in Lima, Peru with “Conchos Temstine Co.”
Lawson was formerly with the Malahat Shipping Co., Ltd. Lawson, in his capacity with Malahat, made an offer in 1954 to the Canadian federal government to blast Ripple Rock (Province, 23 September 1954). Their offer was not accepted. Ripple Rock was exploded by another firm in 1958.
CVA 180-5942.12 – Flying saucer contactees need french fries, too! Flying Saucer concession stand on P.N.E. grounds. 1964, Franz Lindner.
The 1950s and ’60s were prime time for flying saucer enthusiasts. There were at least two UFO-related Vancouver clubs at that time — one called the Vancouver Area Flying Saucer Club (1956-ca1979) and another at UBC known as the Varsity Flying Saucer Club (1957-ca1963).
The first president of the Vancouver Area Club was Margaret Fewster (1917-1986), a gifted contralto and respected music teacher in the city. She described the club as being “not political, subversive or religious, but composed of good, honest and loyal subjects” (Province, 4 July 1956).
Fewster seems to have been the legitimate face of the club. It was founded by Herbert D. Clark (1901-1986), a retired electrical contractor, who sounded a wee bitkookier than Fewster. Clark remarked that the next ‘night watch’ (for spotting locally appearing flying saucers) would be held in September, “unless the solar system brothers advise against it” (Province, 4 July 1956).
In another press report, Clark claimed that the occupants of flying saucers would be in contact with earthlings soon:
They will speak English perfectly, look and dress like any local young businessman and may offer free rides to interested believers in their fantastic planetary vehicles.
Province, 21 June 1956
Clark had a public fit when The Invaders television series was first aired. Instead of accepting that the series was fiction (which was plain; like the later Cannon and Barnaby Jones, it was a Quinn/Martin production), he chose to take it as a (false) commentary on the flying saucer folks:
“It’s absolutely deplorable that they depict (the flying saucer men) as ray gun murderers . . . . They’ve been around our universe for as long as we’ve had recorded history.” Clark said he was so incensed about the series . . . when it was first shown last fall that he wrote a nasty letter to the show’s producers in the U.S.
The UBC Club was founded by Stuart Piddocke and Gareth Shearman (d. 2013). Piddocke said that the purpose of the club was to investigate and “to find the facts”. Shearman was the president of the club for awhile. “Humor will . . . be included on the agenda.” he said (Ubyssey 4 October 1957). A. T. Babcock (1937-1993), who ultimately became a B.C. teacher, was the club’s Intelligence Officer.
It seems to me that the members of the UBC club were less doctrinaire and, on the whole, took themselves less seriously than did the Vancouver Area club members.
Crop of photo of students signing up for UBC Varsity Flying Saucer Club Totem yearbook, 1958, p 269.
The clubs had a couple of interesting speakers. Daniel W. Fry (1908-1992) was one of the earliest. The Sun reported on Fry’s talk to the Vancouver club:
The stocky associate of men of outer space told [his] tale with a straight face . . . . Not one person in the crowd that jammed two rooms in the Art Gallery laughed. They didn’t even smirk. . . . A room was reserved for 150, but half an hour before his lecture began the crowd overflowed into a second room and into the halls. People shared chairs, sat on the floor, jammed into every inch of standing space, to hear and see ‘the man who touched a flying saucer.
Sun, 29 June 1956
VPL 64238 American flying saucer contactee and metaphysical author, George Hunt Williamson (on right), Feb 1958. Province, Gordon F Sedawie.
Another big-name speaker was George H. Williamson, who spoke to the Vancouver group in 1959. His topic was “The City That Existed Before the Moon.” Williamson’s talk was advertised as being presented by the Chairman of Anthropology at a completely fictitious university: Great West University.
The kind of public enthusiasm for flying saucers that would fill two rooms at the Vancouver Art Gallery in 1956 had dissipated substantially by the late 1970s. The Vancouver Area club seemed to fold around 1979. Notwithstanding this, a recent CTV News item claims that Vancouver today is the UFO capital of Canada. Apparently the city has more sightings of flying saucers than any other part of the country.
Crop of CVA 228-545 – N 13, N 14. May 1953. Lew Parry Film Productions. Shows the current Granville Bridge under construction in 1953 and Vancouver Civil Defence Training HQ in its temporary location (1396 Granville) adjacent to and south of the Continental Hotel at the foot of the Bridge.
The property identified in the image above as Vancouver’s Civil Defence Training HQ was originally occupied by NeoLite — a neon sign company. [1] The space was only a temporary site for the civil defence HQ from 1951-1953 mainly because the real estate was needed by the new Granville Bridge (some of the concrete of which is visible in the foreground of the photo).
What was its Function?
The civil defence training group was committed to keeping Vancouverites and British Columbians as safe as possible in the event of an act of a war or national emergency. [2] A major component of CD was the training of an auxiliary police force. The force was made up of of volunteers who were trained by regular police officers. The auxiliary police had a slogan: “If we never need what we learn in civil defence we lose nothing, but if we never learn what we need, we may lose everything” (Sun, 6 Oct 1951). The civil defence HQ also trained volunteer fire personnel.
By 1961, the range of CD training available had broadened beyond training auxiliary police and fire personnel to include training in first aid, home nursing, and rescue survival (among other courses) (Sun 18 Sept 1961).
In the early years (1951-55, say), civil defence was able to draw a healthy number of volunteers, and was seen as a very important task. This was mainly because WW2 was such a recent memory. Not only were there many former ARP (Air Raid Precautions) volunteers in the city from that conflict, but there were many WW2 veterans living in Vancouver then who had seen with their own eyes what destruction was wrought in European cities in the recent war. These people did not need to be persuaded of the importance of preventing a similar outcome in Vancouver.
Civil Defence Takes a Dive
By 1966, however, civil defence had declined significantly in the city’s priorities. Typically, precious few volunteers could be found in the HQ (by then it had moved to Howe). The civil defence head in Vancouver, Group Captain Alexander Lewis, had this to say:
The public shows no interest during periods of peace. They are like an ostrich — they like to keep their heads in the sand; they prefer to forget war….At the time of Cuba [missile crisis] we were inundated with calls about radio activity and fall-out shelters….I sometimes wonder if the amount of money that is spent and the amount of work we put in is not out of all proportion to the number of people we train.
Sun, 2 Aug 1966
CVA 1184-2733 – Exterior view of the Neolite Co. building with a Perfex bleach neon sign on the roof (prior to it becoming Vancouver Civil Defence Training HQ). 1943. Jack Lindsay.
Group Capt. Lewis wasn’t the only one thinking such thoughts. Such questions had occurred to city aldermen, too. By 1966, the city’s civil defence outlay seems to have been principally for the rental of the HQ at Howe: $600 a month. But even that modest sum was considered by City Council to be too much to pay for civil defence and within a year, the headquarters had been vacated and became the new Vancouver City Police Academy (which had moved from, apparently, an unsatisfactory site on the PNE grounds).
‘Civil Defence’ to ‘EMO’ to ‘Search & Rescue’
In the mid-’60s, the civil defence function performed by the Training HQ and other related groups in the province had changed its name, collectively, to the Emergency Measures Organization (EMO) — a group that seems to have been a creature of the federal government. The EMO seemed not to have much continuing relevance in the City of Vancouver after the late 1960s. But it was relevant in the mountainous area of North Vancouver. In 1972, for example, the following EMO action was reported in the press:
A North Vancouver Emergency Measures Organization rescue crew led three people to safety Sunday night after three were stranded on a ledge on Grouse Mountain.
Sun, 22 Nov 1972
You could be forgiven if you concluded that the reported rescue by EMO volunteers sounded a lot like the sort of thing you hear reported today of North Vancouver search and rescue teams. Indeed, the function of the EMO in North Vancouver seemed gradually to morph into the search and rescue organization that exists today in North Vancouver.
The Continental Hotel being demolished ca 2015. MDM Photo
Notes
NeoLite moved to a location at the corner of Burrard and 2nd Avenue after leaving the Granville site. NeoLite was one of several neon sign companies operating in Vancouver at this time. The most famous (and extant) of these firms was Neon Products, which was located on Terminal Avenue.
While the CD Training group was focussed on educating volunteers, another major organization, the Ground Observer Corps, with direct ties to the RCAF, was a more hands-on bunch. The observer corps – a BC-wide, indeed a nation-wide, group of volunteers – were to watch the skies and report in to HQ descriptions of any planes they spotted. The corps headquarters would then check the ground-observed flight info against the flight manifests submitted by each legitimate pilot prior to them taking off. If the airplane reported by the corps didn’t have a manifest and/or it seemed to be suspicious, the RCAF would be ordered, potentially, to ‘scramble’ its fighter planes (Sun, 6 Nov 1954). The headquarters of the corps was at 1363 Howe Street, the same address as the CD Training HQ was moved to after leaving its Granville location — so the two arms of civil defence in Vancouver were at the same site. The Ground Observer Corps folded by 1960, when the same functions it had performed with human observers could be more efficiently carried out electronically. The CD Training arm was mothballed a few years later, in 1967 (Province, 3 May 1960).
My very good friend, Art Hadley, died on Christmas Day, 2016. He had a special connection with Vancouver, although he and his wife, Edna, spent relatively little time in the Greater Vancouver area, recently. In their retirement, they settled in Mississauga and later in Gravenhurst, ON.
Art was a Baptist pastor who seemed to me born for that career with a preacher’s voice that boomed out of his relatively small body¹. He became a member of First Baptist Church (Vancouver) with his parents (Frank and Nellie) in 1946, after serving in the Canadian Navy in World War II. He spent time at divinity school in the U.S. and then became a full-time minister. He served pastorates in Regina, Fredericton, and West Virginia. He also served long and significant terms in New Westminster (Olivet Baptist) and Vancouver (West Point Grey Baptist).
Rev. Art Hadley and Rev. Dr. Bruce Milne while ministering together at First Baptist Church (Vancouver). Archives, First Baptist Church (Vancouver). n.d.
Later in life, following his retirement from full-time ministry, he served as an interim pastor in Charlottetown, P.E.I. and served two terms at First Baptist Church (Vancouver) as Interim Director of Ministries in 1994-95 and also in 1999-2000. Even in the ’90s, there were still longtime FBC members who remembered Art and his parents with great warmth and he was welcomed at FBC in his largely administrative role, with Rev. Dr. Bruce Milne as the Senior Minister.
It was when Art was at FBC that I first got to know him. I was working in the office at First during his stints there as interim DOM. A memory I have is of knocking on Art’s office door around lunch time. I recall seeing him sitting at his desk with a can of Classic Coca-Cola within easy reach. I can hear his reply to my question as to whether he was free for lunch, as though it were yesterday: “Let’s go!” he’d most often say, and he’d be on his feet in a flash and ready to accompany me.
That will be my enduring memory of Art Hadley.
For a more complete obituary, see below:
If you are interested in hearing an example of Art’s preaching, there is a sample on Regent College’s audio site (as part of First Baptist Church’s audio archive there). It is his sermon delivered on February 28, 1999 at FBC and is entitled Begrudging Generosity. It’s a free download.
November 2020 Update
Here is an excerpt from a 1951 First Baptist Vancouver minute which I recently unearthed from a number of images I made at the FBC Archives a couple of years ago. It is a copy of a letter written by FBC’s Clerk to the Ordination Council at Cameron Memorial Baptist (Regina) – Art’s first post-seminary charge. The original letter was to have been hand-delivered to Regina by his dad, Frank Hadley.
1951 FBC Minutes. First Baptist Church (Vancouver) Archives.1951 FBC Minutes. First Baptist Church (Vancouver) Archives.
The War Memorial Gym is one of the few buildings on UBC’s campus that has withstood the plans of developers and administrators to demolish and replace structures that show the least age.
As you will see in the photos below, however, there were changes to the plans for a Memorial Gym in the years following WWII. And changes otherwise touched the Gym.
How much longer can the Memorial Gym continue to stand?
A very early artist’s impression of the exterior of UBC War Memorial Gym. From UBC Visitors’ Day brochure. March 2nd 1946. MDM Collection.A very different artist’s impression of the War Memorial Gym, this time showing an attached enclosure where an envisioned pool, office space, bowling alley etc. were envisioned. The enclosure would not be built when the auditorium was constructed in 1951. The Empire Pool would occupy that space starting in 1954. From UBC’s The Alumni Chronicle, Dec 1948. UBC Open Collections,Floor plan, War Memorial Gym. Sept 1950. UBC Open Collection.
VPL 43668 British Empire Games outdoor swimming pool (to be known simply as Empire Pool) and War Memorial Gym at UBC. 1954. Province Newspaper.
Aerial View of War Memorial Gym. 1962. Peter Holborne photo. Memorial Hall is clear above. It is the slightly lower attachment to the auditorium adjacent to Empire Pool.
View of War Memorial Gym and General Services Admin Building. 1973. GSAB was built in 1969 and stood until ca2017. GSAB was demolished to make way for new residences for students.
Remembrance Day at War Memorial Gym. 1977. Jim Barnham photo. This shows part of Memorial Hall. There are plaques in this space which show the names of students who fought and fell in WWI and WWII.
Laying a new floor in War Memorial Gym auditorium. 1980.
Student Registration in War Memorial Gym. 1980. Jim Barnham photo.
View of Audience in War Memorial Gym during Billy Graham’s Crusade at UBC. 1984.
Convocation ceremony: Congregation procession leaving War Memorial Gym. Between 1980-1989.
Eastern perimeter of War Memorial Gym (with storage rooms beneath auditorium seats for gym equipment etc.). Jan 2016. MDM photo.Empire Pool (viewed from Memorial Gym) emptied and ready for demolition. 2016. MDM Photo.
Demolition of the General Services Admin Building with War Memorial Gym in background. ca 2017. MDM Photo. A final concrete vertical pillar had temporarily been converted into a public announcement display and a bench. Later, the land would be re-developed into new student residences.
There is a hotel on the SE corner of Granville and Nelson that has stood there for nearly 110 years. It has been known for most of that time as the Hotel Belmont. During its early years, however, it was called the Hotel Barron.
Hotel Barron (1912-1925)
The 6-storey hotel block (with, initially, retail space occupying much of the ground floor) opened in February, 1912. It was a hotel with 120 rooms and was of brick construction.
It was co-owned by Colonel Oscar G. Barron, an American millionaire hotelier, his wife, Jennie Barron (nee Lane), Mr. T. S. Brophy and his wife, Mrs. Brophy (who was Mrs. Barron’s sister). The Brophys were active partners in the Barron Hotel venture, managing the business and living in Vancouver, while the Barrons took a less active role in the Vancouver hotel business and lived in New England (World 6 Jan 1913).
Hotel Barron postcard (n.d.). Courtesy Neil Whaley’s Collection. Note: The person who created the image on this postcard, added a couple of extra stories to the structure. Here, the 6-storey building is shown as having 8 stories.
Oscar Barron died in 1913 from blood poisoning which cost him part of a foot and then a leg due to amputation and, ultimately, his life. “He had served in the New Hampshire House of Representatives and on the staff of the New Hampshire governors, hence his title of colonel.” (Rutland Daily Herald (Vermont), 8 Jan 1913). Brophy (who also had the — presumably honorary — title of colonel) and Barron had a hotel partnership near Vancouver dating prior to the establishment of the Barron Hotel. It was the Hotel Fairfield in Seattle at 6th and Madison (currently, the site of the Renaissance Seattle Hotel complex).
There was a second building under Barron/Brophy ownership, a block south (1161 Granville) of the main hotel property (1002-1006 Granville) called — unimaginatively — the Barron Annex. The 5-storey Annex was sold in 1917 and became known as the St. Helen’s Hotel. Today, St. Helen’s is a single room occupancy rooming house.
Barron Hotel Restaurant ad. UBC Totem. 1920. UBC Open Collections.
The Barron Hotel was originally named in honour of two of the owners — Oscar and Jennie Barron. But the Barron Restaurant (a component of the hotel), as part of an early marketing campaign, hinted broadly in its ads that its name had European roots and that it was named for the famous “Le Baron” restaurant in Paris, France. As with many ad claims, this just wasn’t so.
Hotel Belmont (1925-ca1971)
Hotel Belmont Brochure. Inside pages. n.d. (1920s?) MDM Collection.
In 1913, following Col. Barron’s death, Col. Brophy left the Barron. William D. Wood became the manager. In 1916, the Barron/Brophy interests were sold, and by May 1925, the hotel was bought by the Belmont Hotel Company, of which Wood was part. At that time, the name of the hotel was changed to the Belmont.
CVA 99-1507 – Barron Hotel Radio Station ca 1924. Stuart Thomson photo.
By 1922, William Downie Wood, confusingly the 19-year-old son of Belmont manager, W. D. Wood, had made a name for himself as an amateur radio operator at the hotel. Wood Jr., a native of Santa Cruz, CA, was granted a special experimental amateur radio operator’s license by the Canadian federal government (Santa Cruz Evening News [California] 8 March 1922).
The presence of an existing radio station at the Barron/Belmont was likely central to the eventual broadcast on CNRV radio (which would ultimately become part of CBC’s radio network) of the Belmont Orchestra from the Rose Room. By the 1930s, the orchestra would be broadcast from the Belmont over local commercial station CJOR (Sun, 30 April 1930).
A Guest Goes Missing
Shortly after the hotel opened as the Belmont, it became the fulcrum of a missing person case that made headlines in local papers for 7 months. Clarence Peppard was a 45-year-old businessman from Minneapolis. He came to Vancouver in December, 1925 to visit his brother who lived in Chilliwack. On December 10, he left the Belmont, where he was a guest, ostensibly on a BCER interurban train bound for Chilliwack. He never arrived at his destination (Sun 16 Dec 1925). The last he was seen was leaving the Belmont and later at a Vancouver telegraph office where he sent a wire to his brother asking that he meet his train upon its arrival in Chilliwack. Someone matching Peppard’s description was seen near Marpole, which borders on the north arm of the Fraser River, on the day he went missing (Sun 23 Dec 1925).
For months, police searched for Peppard or his body, without success. Then, in June, 1926, a body was found just off Kirkland Island on the North Arm of the Fraser. The build of the dead man seemed to match that of Peppard, but decomposition was so advanced that it was nearly impossible to be certain of identification (Province, 28 June 1926). In the end, however, the body was confirmed as Peppard’s (as closely as police technique would permit identification in 1926) (Chilliwack Progress, 8 Sept 1926).
Other Identities and Return of the Belmont
The Belmont Hotel became Nelson Place Hotel in the early 1970s and remained so until it was re-named the Dakota in 1997. It became a Comfort Inn in the 2000s and, in 2017, it was again branded the Belmont Hotel as part of a $12 million renovation by new owners. The new Belmont seems to be aiming to attract, primarily, a millennial demographic, judging from the gallery at their website.
Exterior and Interior images of Nelson Place Hotel (aka Belmont). Postcard. n.d.
I ran across this wee item in the archival collection of First Baptist Church when I was in the Archives a year or two ago researching another subject. I took a quick photo of this page and then forgot about it until I stumbled across it today.
There is no date associated with the ’10 Commandments’. I suspect that it was regularly reprinted, perhaps with updates, over several years, possibly as early as the 1930s and perhaps as late as the 1980s. I doubt that these commandments were distributed to ushers beyond the ’80s, however. Why? Mainly because of antiquated vocabulary. The periodic references to ‘strangers’, in particular. This was language that was understood (by longtime church members) to refer to non-members of the church. By the time we joined First Vancouver in 1991, strangers were referred to (arguably, less offensively) as ’adherents’. ’Strangers’ had probably been out of vogue in church language for some years before that.
I have never been a church usher, but these ‘commandments’ seem to me to speak of older ushers I have known who took their responsibilities very seriously. One who comes to mind is the late Mr. Lenfesty.
It would be nigh-unto impossible to enforce these rules in the loosie-goosie, do-what-you-like environment that has been present in church services in recent years.
First Baptist Church Choir, 1915. With the BC Music Festival cups in front of T. Bonne Millar, Choirmaster and Organist of the Church (1911-1921). Courtesy, First Baptist Church Archives.
The early organists at First Baptist Church (1905-1975) are an intriguing collection. One was willful and arguably bad-tempered; another had an unusual name which the press messed up; one was on staff when the Sanctuary and organ burned to a crisp; another was a talented young person whose term was cut short by tragedy; and one formed a folk choir and coaxed a tuneful voice out of the last of the church’s pipe organs.
Not dull at all!
Earliest Days
There was no organ in the tiny chapel building, which was FBC’s first permanent home (just off Main at East Pender). So, the earliest congregational accompanists at First Baptist Church Vancouver weren’t organists, but volunteer pianists. One of the earliest of these was Laura Carlisle (wife of J. H. Carlisle).
Early FBC organists were paid $15 per month for their services. But the first organ wasn’t, strictly speaking, a solo instrument; the boy who pumped air into the organ — the pumper — was a critical member of the team, although organists and their listeners tended not to remember that, much less pay him anything for his services (W. M. Carmichael. These Sixty Years: 1887-1947, p. 18).
John Alexander (1905)
The first organist/choirmaster identified in FBC’s records was John Alexander, a Scot. He was born to John Alexander Sr. and Isabella McCulloch in Edinburgh in 1865.2 He married Geraldine Boyd in 1891.
Alexander had been the organist for Candlish Presbyterian Church in Edinburgh. He and Geraldine arrived in Vancouver in 1893. He began by offering his services in the city as a vocal trainer and piano instructor (Province, 18 Aug 1903).
Alexander began working at FBC sometime in 1905. The story of his ultimate departure from First is told here. He made his exit by September 1905. After leaving FBC, he took over organ-playing and choir-leading responsibilities for the Congregational Church. He resigned from there in September 1907 to take up a post with a North Vancouver church (Province, 21 Sept 1907).
Alexander had a working life outside the church. He was a North Vancouver municipal councillor and later was an assessor of the municipality (Province, 10 Jan 1918). He died in January 1918.
Georgina M. Malkin (nee Grundy) (1906-07)
Georgina Maude Grundy was appointed to replace Alexander in June 1906 (Province, 2 June 1906). She was born in 1884 in Winnipeg. She married John Philip Davy Malkin shortly after accepting the organist’s job at FBC.
The quality of Mrs. Malkin’s playing, is described in a 1907 feature about the church, as nice, though unambitious — faint praise, to be sure (Province, 6 Apr 1907). She resigned as FBC organist three months later. She died in April, 1967.
Frank R. Austen (1907-08?)
Mrs. Malkin was replaced as FBC organist, briefly, by Frank R. Austen. He apparently had “wide experience” as an organist “in both the United States and Canada” (Province, 5 July 1907). Austen married Miss Burritt in 1909 (Province, 10 April 1909). Mr. Austen seems not to have lasted long at FBC, seemingly leaving within a few months of accepting the post.
T. Bonne Millar (1910-1919; 1920-1921)
T(homas) Bonne (pronounced Bonnie) Millar, began as FBC’s organist/choir director in November 1910. (He must have been frustrated with the local press who couldn’t seem to cope with his middle name; in one press account, a caption under his photograph identified “T. Bone Millar”).
He was born and raised in Glasgow, Scotland and, according to a Province article, his uncle, George Taggart, was “the leading musical citizen of Glasgow” (Province, 4 November 1910). Millar was organist of John Street Presbyterian Church, Glasgow, for eight years and served as organist/choirmaster of Mt. Pleasant Methodist, in Vancouver for about three years prior to hiring on at First.
Millar must have been pleased to be employed at FBC when he was, as he took the job just before the congregation moved into their new structure at Nelson and Burrard — with a new (although relatively modest, I suspect) pipe organ. Unhappily, there is very little detail that I could find about the specifics of the instrument, save that it was expected to cost about $7,200.
Millar remained at FBC until 1919, when he accepted a job at the organ for Central Methodist Church in Calgary. The Daily World, in a retrospective piece published on the occasion of his departure from Vancouver, claimed that his place in Vancouver’s music scene “will not be readily filled”:
During his regime at the First Baptist Church the choir has been brought to a high state of efficiency, for two years in succession carrying away the highest honors, in the shape of the Fromme and Steuart [sic; Stewart, actually, I think] challenge cups from the B. C. [Music] Festival, held at Lynn Valley 1915-16…
Daily World. 4 January, 1919, p. 9.
Alas, his time in Calgary which seemed so promising in January, was abandoned in June of the same year, probably due to poor health. He returned to Vancouver where he resumed playing for Mt Pleasant Methodist Church (where he had been organist for a few years prior to taking on the job at FBC in 1910).
It wasn’t long before he was back in the Baptist saddle, though. First Baptist re-hired Millar as its organist and choirmaster sometime in 1920. But his health soon took a negative turn and he was forced to take a 6-month leave of absence from First, which he spent in California. Millar ultimately decided that his health was too fragile for him to continue as organist at First and he resigned again in 1921.
By 1923, to help keep body and soul attached, presumably, he took on the organist’s job at (the less demanding?) Fairview Baptist Church. He also led the Men’s Musical Club (1919-20).
T. Bonne Millar died in 1942 at age 60.
Wilbur G. Grant (1921-1928)
During Millar’s health-related ‘to-ing and fro-ing’, Wilbur G. Grant was acting FBC organist/choirmaster. He was confirmed in the job in 1921 upon Millar’s departure for Calgary. Grant was from Toronto, where he trained under organist/conductor, Augustus Vogt. He served as organist at Broadway Tabernacle, Toronto, for a few years. Grant headed west ca1913 and settled in Edmonton where he worked as organist/choirmaster of First Presbyterian Church and later as musical director at Alberta College (later known as the University of Alberta).
Sometime in 1921, he left Edmonton. It may have been for health reasons, as an early Edmonton press report indicated that Grant suffered from asthma. He opened a piano studio in the Fairview district of the City of Vancouver while he and his family resided in the West Vancouver community of Ambleside. Presumably, the Baptists came calling on Grant to serve as acting organist/choirmaster in the wake of Millar’s departure for Calgary (and later, during Millar’s leave of absence). Upon Millar’s final resignation, Grant took over.
Grant played for FBC until 1928.
After leaving First, Grant became organist for St. George’s Anglican Church. He also led the UBC Musical Society (1921-23+), the North Vancouver Choral Society (1925-27), the Point Grey Choral Society (1926-27), and the David Spencer Choir (ca1934).
He died a very young man in 1935 at age 54, after a “lingering illness”.
Evan Walters (1928-1956)
Evan Walters filled the organ/choir director’s position upon the resignation of Grant. Walters was a Welshman who had recently arrived in the city. He had earned a degree from the Royal Academy of Music, London and led a choir of over 200 voices in one of the largest churches in Swansea, Wales (Sun, 28 Sept 1928).
Walters’ period at FBC saw him play many organ recitals and lead the choir from strength to strength. But after he’d been on the job for about three years the church entered a period of loss and transition. Much-loved pastor, J. J. Ross, resigned the pastorate at the end of 1929 to accept a call to Trinity Baptist, Winnipeg. That sparked an unsettled two-year search for a new senior minister. But perhaps the greater loss, from Walters’ point of view, occurred on Tuesday, February 10, 1931, when FBC’s sanctuary burned to the ground; the organ went with it.
FBC was determined to build a new and even better sanctuary, quickly. And included in the plans was a new pipe organ. So there was hope amid loss. The organ would be a big-ticket item: $15,000. The sanctuary was completed and the “Mother’s Memorial Organ” was installed in time for the re-dedication service in November of the same year — just 9 months after the fire. Why the “Mother’s Memorial” organ? It was a clever means of fund-raising to name the new organ in honour of congregants’ mothers who had ‘passed on’.
When rooting around FBC’s archive for information on the organ, I discovered (in an unmarked banker’s box beneath a bookshelf) a special book that was prepared during the fund-raising period, showing the name of each donor (on the left page of each two-page spread) and that person’s mother (on the right). A PDF of the book has been created.
The Mother’s Memorial Organ is described in the following blurb in the Dedication bulletin:
It is a three-manual, thirty-six stop instrument, thoroughly modern in construction. It is a model of mechanical skill, quick and reliable, instantaneous response. . . . There are nearly 2,200 speaking pipes in the instrument of wood and metal of various shapes and sizes, and make a rare combination of tone. The organ reflects great credit on the skill and efficiency of the builders and is another tribute to the high reputation of the Woodstock Pipe Organ Builders [which local pipe organ aficionado, Tom Carter, has pointed out was once part of the older firm of Karn-Warren Organ Co., which closed in 1895] (Emphasis mine).
Walters called it quits at First in 1956, having served there for 27 years.
In addition to his work for First, Walters was the conductor of the Burrard Male Choir (1931-44), the Hudson’s Bay Company Choir (1933-40), the Brahms Choir (1935-38), the CPR Male Choir (1934-37), and the Welsh Choral Society (1947-51).3 He also led a mass choir of 1,500 voices, accompanied by the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra on the occasion of the 1939 Royal Visit to Vancouver. He was on retainer at Mount Pleasant Chapel undertakers for 34 years (1928-62).
He died in 1965 at age 74, apparently of Leukemia.
Sherwood Robson (1956-1966)
Sherwood Robson took over the organist’s post at FBC in September 1956. He was well-known around the city as a successful leader of school choirs and of the Vancouver Teachers’ Choir. He also led the Bach Choir (1948-50), the Night School Ladies’ Chorus (ca 1947), and the South Vancouver Olympic Girls’ Choir (ca1937).
Robson finished a 10-year term at FBC in June 1966.
A decade later, Robson conducted a special combined Easter choir of FBC, St. Andrew’s United (North Vancouver), and West Vancouver Baptist churches, singing selections from Handel’s Messiah (Province, 10 Apr 1976). On this occasion, past and present music staff were brought together on a project: Former FBC organist Robson led the mass choir, and past and future FBC organist Carol Barker (formerly Williams) was their organist/accompanist.
Sherwood Robson died in December 1995.
Carol Williams (1967-1968)
Garth Williams, Violin, Curtis Williams, Cello and Miss Carol Richardson (later, Williams), Piano. (Province. 30 April 1955).
FBC’s Music Committee’s Annual Report in 1967 stated that after interviewing many applicants for the organist/choir director’s position, “we engaged on November 1 [1967], the services of Mr. Curtis Williams and his wife, Carol. We are confident these two competent young people will rapidly develop a progressive approach to our music ministry tradition in a happy and capable manner.” This was a departure for FBC, as the two tasks, which had for so long been taken on by a single person, would now be split: Curtis would assume the job of choir direction while Carol would be the organist.
The Williams were evidently keen in their new posts at First and the church was likewise delighted with their work. Then, tragedy. A boating accident in the summer of 1968 claimed the lives of Ed Richardson (Carol’s father) and Curtis Williams. Carol Williams stepped down from the organist’s position.
But Carol was not finished at First — not by a long ways. She would return following her marriage to Larry Barker, as Carol Barker, for numerous appearances on the organ and harp starting in the late-1970s and continuing through the ’80s, and ’90s.
She died in April, 2018.
Darryl Downton (1969-75)
Darryl Downton was selected as the new FBC organist/choir director in May 1969. He came to First from the Canadian Memorial United Church, where he had been the organist. He was offered a one-year contract and began playing at FBC in September, 1969. His contract would be enthusiastically renewed and Downton would remain at FBC for six years.
In 1970, the Sun reported on a noon-hour concert which included Downton playing the Mother’s Memorial Organ. He received a very good review; the organ did not. The MMO was showing her age, some 40 years after being installed.
The concerts are the brainchild of First Baptist’s organist, Darryl Downton, who was one of two soloists on the program. A musician of talent and, as became apparent, considerable courage, Downton wheedled the church’s decrepit 36-rank organ — which he compared to a 1934 Chevrolet — into a fair-sounding performance.
Sun, 9 Dec 1970
An innovation of Downton’s at First was the creation of a folk choir known as the Sunday Singers. Imagine what earlier organist/choir leaders at FBC would have had to say about ‘folk music’ at a Baptist church! According to Mr. Downton, a number of the Sunday Singers remain today in friendly contact with each other.
In 1975, Downton resigned his post at FBC. He picked up the organist’s position, again, at the Canadian Memorial church for a number of years, until retiring.
Darryl Downton died in February 2020 in Vancouver.
Pipe Organ Fades to Black
In 1971, an Organ Committee was established at FBC to evaluate the Mother’s Memorial Organ and whether it had a future at the church; and if so, at what cost. When the committee reported a year later, they concluded that the expense of maintaining the old organ was nigh-unto prohibitive. But, as they hadn’t been charged to make recommendations on buying a new organ, their report took a conservative tack, suggesting that the church spend the dollars necessary to do the most necessary work on the organ (the sort that couldn’t wait any longer) and that church leaders bear in mind that within about 5 years they would need either to do a major overhaul of MMO or buy a new instrument, preferably an electronic organ without pipes.
View of FBC Sanctuary taken from behind the ‘Pipe’ screen where pipes were housed at one time, but not at the time the photo was taken. ca2012. MDM Photo.
By the late ’70s, FBC decision-makers had accepted the Organ Committee’s view that the MMO was too expensive to continue with and an electronic Baldwin organ was purchased to replace it. This decision wasn’t exactly embraced by long-term members at First. But it was ultimately understood to be financially necessary.
The Baldwin organ which was bought by First Baptist in the late 1970s, in its turn, was replaced in the early 1990s with the current electronic organ.
The pipe organ had had its day at First; there was no turning back.
Notes
¹Jesse Williams had moved to North Vancouver by the time the organ was installed; his membership was transferred to a Baptist congregation in that municipality (which congregation he moved to wasn’t specified in First’s membership book).
2I’m grateful to Robert Moen for his research assistance in tracking down details on the careers of Alexander, Malkin, and Austen.
3Dale McIntosh, History of Music in British Columbia. Victoria: Sono Nis Press, 1989, pp. 88-90.
My thanks to Mary Cramond, Linda Zlotnik, Erika Voth, Darryl Downton, Anita Bowes, Tom Carter, Kurtis Findlay, and Edna Grenz for responding with generosity to questions related to this subject.
This post is dedicated to the memory of Ay-Laung Wang, Organist at First Baptist Church for more than 20 years.
VPL 17587: Consecration Day procession. Aug 4 1915. Stuart Thomson photo.
August 4, 1915 was declared by Vancouver’s civic authorities to be Consecration Day. It would commemorate the one-year anniversary of Canada declaring war against Germany and thereby entering the Great War. In the words of those who were contemporary to the event, the purpose of Consecration Day was “to invoke divine blessing upon our efforts.” (World 29 July 1915).
Local church denominations were asked to hold religious services from 2 until 3 p.m. After that, there was a parade which began at Main and Hastings and ended at the Cambie Street Grounds. There was a long list of gents invited to speak at the Cambie Grounds (from Charles Hibbert Tupper to the Japanese Consul Abe). Each speaker was asked to speak for no more than 10 minutes. I counted about 27 in the list of invited speakers. If each of them spoke for an average of 10 minutes, the audience would be sitting for about 2.5 hours (World 29 July 1915). That is considerably longer than most sermons — even in 1915!
Proclaiming a day as “Consecration Day” doesn’t seem to me something that would be done today in the event that (God forbid) there were a major war involving Canada as a combatant. The largely Christian demographic of the city has changed, probably permanently, to one that is not.
There is a strong element of blessing associated with consecration [1]. Since blessing is, ultimately, something that comes from God, it seems clear that at least one purpose of Consecration Day was to claim (dubiously?) God’s blessing on our side in the war.
Note
I am appreciative of Nancy Nelson for her help in interpreting the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament) and the use of the English word consecrate. And also of Rev. Tim Kuepfer for his help with New Testament use of the word. I should point out that I pulled out a very small part of their responses to me. Thank you both for your help!
A Murray’s Book Store printed bag. MDM Collection.
I was delighted when my friend, Jason, presented me with the bag shown above, a year or two ago. Murray’s Book Store wasn’t then known to me. It had gone out of business a few years before I’d started to visit or live in Vancouver.
Murray Gordon Hughson (1908-1971) was born in Harrow, ON to Gordon Hughson and Ethel Duncan. His first career was as a school teacher in the Windsor area. He later was appointed as inspector of schools in Kitchener (Windsor Star, 2 July 1942).
This bookmark was a generous gift from my friends at The Paper Hound Bookshop, Kim Koch and Rod Clarke.
Hughson’s marital history is a little hazy. He married Mary Letitia Isabel Bradish, another school teacher, in London, ON in 1935. Together, Mary and Murray had a daughter in 1943, Nora Kathleen. She died just two years later. Murray and Mary were divorced in January 1970. Assuming his divorce was according to Hoyle, he must have married his second wife, Edith Annie (1914-2009), sometime in the 1970-71 period (I cannot find any documents pertaining to his second marriage; I’m relying on the grave marker for Edith Hughson which is next to Murray’s in Mountain View Cemetery, and on Murray’s death year, 1971).
Hughson’s first appearance in Vancouver was in 1952 (in the City Directory). That same year, he bought the Scenery Shop, a book and souvenir shop at 856 Granville. The Scenery Shop had been in business since the 1920s under different ownership. He owned/managed the Scenery Shop in 1952-53. In 1954, Hughson changed the name and nature of the Scenery Shop to Murray’s Book Store, a ‘new book’ shop.
The following year, Hughson bought Pender Stationery and Bookstore (728 W Pender for most of its life, but at the time Hughson bought it, it was at 810 W Pender), a shop that had been in business since 1915 (Province 26 July 1955). The Pender shop wouldn’t last long. By 1960, the stock in that shop was moved to Hughson’s Granville store and Pender was closed (Sun 23 Jan 1960).
Murray’s advertised itself from the outset as catering to “unusual reading tastes.” In fact, it claimed to have “a tremendous stock of non best sellers” (Province. 30 Jan 1954). Murray’s Book Store became notable for having a strong section of books on technical subjects.
Hughson and Bill Duthie (of Duthie Books) were named directors of the national Canadian Booksellers Association in 1961 (Sun 17 May 1961).
Murray Hughson died in 1971 in London, England. What he was doing in England isn’t clear, nor is it clear how/why he died at such a relatively early age — he was about 62. It is possible that he was there to marry Edith, as he had received the divorce from Mary the year prior. In any case, his early death in England made for a very brief marriage to Edith.
Murray’s Book Store continued in business for about a decade after his death. In 1972, Peter C. Lawrence became the new owner of Murray’s.
In 1973, there was a fire at the Commodore Cabaret (a business nearby Murray’s) and the books in the shop had some smoke damage. In 1974, Lawrence announced that the shop would be moving from 800 block Granville south to 942 due to rent increases. Murray’s rent at 856 Granville had nearly doubled — from $6/square foot to $14 (Sun 11 Feb 1974).
The shop closed its doors for the last time during the final quarter of 1980. Pity. I feel sure that I would have enjoyed browsing Murray’s.
Exterior drawing of the proposed Hippodrome for SE Corner, Granville & Pacific. Province. 25 May 1912.
The drawing above is of the planned Vancouver Hippodrome. [1] It was to have been located on the SE corner of Granville and Pacific at the north end of the Granville Bridge #2 (see image near the end of this post for an attempt to show the Hippodrome in geographical context). [2]
The Vancouver Hippodrome was to have been one of several similar theatres across Canada (including — depending on which press account you believe — St. John, Halifax, Ottawa, Montreal, Toronto, Hamilton, Port Arthur, Moose Jaw (huh?!), Regina, Winnipeg, Calgary, Edmonton, Victoria and Vancouver). But the Hippodrome was never built in Vancouver, nor in any of the other cities in which construction was planned. [3]
The Canadian hippodromes were together to form a circuit for the exclusive use of English production companies to get Canadian eyes on English-produced plays. The plays would originally have been on English stages, so there were no additional set-up costs for the plays. Once the theatres were built in Canada, there remained the costs associated with travel and shipping. Captain Montague Yates was the Canadian representative of Canadian Hippodromes Ltd. (or, as it was later known, British-Canadian Amusement Co.).
The financing of the scheme was to be borne primarily by un-named English ‘capitalists’. Three-quarters of the capital necessary would be provided by them. (Ottawa Citizen 23 Nov 1911). The balance would come from the city in which the theatre was to be built.
Hippodrome decision-makers would also be English. William Holles, a big name on the English stage, would be the stage manager of the Vancouver theatre. Although Montague Yates was the Canadian connection in establishing theatre sites, he doesn’t appear to have had much of a role in the operation of theatres, once they were constructed.
Motives
The primary motive of the Hippodrome project was, of course, profit. But profit for whom? The way that the scheme was set up, the bulk of the risk was on the shoulders of the English capitalists. Thus, so was any profit (or loss).
But there were a couple of other motives, apparently.
Yates claimed in an early press report in 1911 that:
[M]any of the best people in Canada do not attend the theatre. . . because they can never be sure whether or not they will have to submit to smut on the stage. We shall give the people the clean English play.
Ottawa Journal. 23 Nov 1911 (Emphasis mine).
I question whether there was anything inherently clean about plays that originated in the Old Country (or, for that matter, anything inherently smutty about Canadian productions)!
According to a later newspaper report, another motive of the Canadian Hippodromes was to prevent the domination of Canadian theatres with American productions (Province 25 May 1912). I find this claim more believable. The number of American plays coming across the 49th parallel was increasing steadily by this time. I doubt that the Hippodrome project was intended to do Canadians any favours, however. I suspect this was more a case of the English capitalists identifying a market niche and attempting to fill it.
Begins to Unravel
Initial signs of the unravelling of the Hippodromes project first became evident in central Canada. An Ottawa paper reported that negotiations by Yates for a theatre site in that city had fallen through:
In Ottawa, as in Montreal and other cities Captain Yates visited, [the plan] called for the investment of Canadian as well as British capital he was supposed to have behind him and this is understood not to have been forthcoming readily. Negotiations for a site therefore have been discontinued . . .
Ottawa Citizen. 28 June 1912 (Emphasis mine).
Endures in Vancouver
In Vancouver, however, the hippodrome plan still had life after the wheels had come off in the major centre of Montreal and in Ottawa (and “other cities”). More than a month after the Ottawa report, the Vancouver Sun was crowing with considerable hyperbole, that the city would soon have, in our hippodrome, “the handsomest playhouse in America”. Details about the theatre that were included in the Sun included (Sun 30 July 1912):
Construction: to begin in early August 1912 (it didn’t begin then; indeed, it didn’t get underway at all);
Completion: 9 months after work begins;
Exterior: Terra cotta;
Capacity: 3000 people;
Features: 1 royal box; 16 private boxes; promenades; lounging rooms for patrons; ladies’ retiring rooms and sitting rooms; gentlemen’s smoking room;
Stage: Dimensions 42 feet wide, 72 feet deep;
Estimated cost: $500,000;
Architect: Monsieur de H. Duval (London);
Managing director: William Holles (London); Holles was a big name in London theatrical circles; he produced and directed many plays there in 1880s-1930s;
Crop of CVA 99-2245 – The older (1909) Granville Bridge (north end), ca1926. Stuart Thomson photo. Image adjusted by author with pasting-in of drawing of exterior of Vancouver Hippodrome roughly where it was planned to be built: at SE corner of Granville & Pacific.
‘With a Whimper . . .’
Yates had secured an “option” on the SE corner of Granville and Pacific and was negotiating for the purchase of the property soon thereafter (Province 25 May 1912). It isn’t clear to me whether money ever changed hands for the Granville/Pacific property.
It seems doubtful that any headway was ever made on the construction of the Hippodrome in our city, however. In Spring of 1913, Yates finally admitted that the circuit plan in Vancouver (and thus elsewhere in the nation) was dead. Inscrutably, Yates blamed “Montreal interests” for the failure of the Vancouver theatre. Montreal seems to me to have been a convenient scapegoat. As we have seen, the bulk of the financing came from England; and the balance of capital was to be provided by fundraising in the city in which the theatre was to be located. I can’t see what Montreal funds (or lack thereof) would have to do with the failure of the Vancouver Hippodrome (World 25 March 1913).
My suspicion is that the English investors had developed a severe case of cold feet. Frankly, I doubt that the Canadian Hippodromes scheme would have worked even with several of the major Canadian cities still onboard. The capital outlay for the theatres, plus the shipping and travel and other costs across this very large country would have been staggering. I suspect that this aspect was underestimated by the capitalists.
When all was said and done, the whole scheme seems to have been a pipe dream.
Notes
What is a hippodrome? 19th century references were primarily to circuses or to equestrian events or places where such events were held. By the early years of the 20th century, however, the meaning had shifted to refer to a live theatrical location — a playhouse. This was the meaning attached to the Vancouver Hippodrome (and other planned Canadian hippodromes). There was, in addition to the London Hippodrome, a Bristol Hippodrome and a New York Hippodrome (and these are just two examples).
Since the construction of the new (current) Granville Bridge in 1954, Pacific has run beneath Granville (the two streets no longer cross one another on the same level as they did when the older, lower, bridge was still standing).
The drawing of the Vancouver Hippodrome shown at the beginning of this post is the only one of which I’m aware. None of the other Canadian cities seem to have got to the drawing stage.
UBC Archives. “College Library” renamed “Sedgewick Library”, 1965: G. Philip V. Akrigg (left); Blythe Alfred Eagles; William Robbins; Roy Daniells. These gents (all of whom were professors of English except for Blythe Eagles who was Dean of Agriculture for several years) are standing beneath a portrait of Prof. Sedgewick.
In these times when the dollar is king, the norm in development circles is that he/she/they who donates the largest wad of cash to the construction of a building gets it named after him/her/them.
This appears not to have been the case at UBC in the relatively recent past, with two libraries, a reading room, and a lecture series named in honour of Professor Garnett Sedgewick (1882-1949). Prof. Sedgewick was the first head of the English department and he lectured on Chaucer and Shakespeare. There is no evidence available online that he left a substantial sum to the university upon his passing.
The first image (above) is of “College Library” at its renaming as “Sedgewick Library“. This original Sedgewick Library was located in the north wing (exterior shown below) of the Main Library. This space was occupied by the Special Collections Division of the library when I was at UBC in the early 1990s. (And, if memory serves, was where graduate students deposited completed theses).
UBC Archives. Sedgewick Library entrance. 1965.
The next two images show the Sedgewick Undergraduate Library (exterior and interior) as I knew it when I was a student at UBC. The night shot shows a library skylight — one of the few photographable exterior elements of the library, since one of the principal defining features of ‘Sedge’ was that it was an underground library.
There was a 1960s feel at Sedge. This isn’t surprising, given that it was built in the early 1970s and opened in 1973.
Today, the Koerner Library stands where “Sedge” once was.
UBC Archives. Sedgewick Undergraduate Library skylight in foreground. 1977.
UBC Archives. Student in Sedgewick Undergraduate Library. 1978.
This next image shows the Sedgewick Memorial Reading Room in the Main Library. (Note: Main Libary was at the site which today is known as the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre.)
UBC Archives. Sedgewick Memorial Reading Room (in Main Library). ca1953. The portrait of Prof. Sedgewick that appeared later in the first image in this post in the former College Library was in the Memorial Room first, just above the hearth.
There was also a Sedgewick Memorial Lecture series. The first lecturer was Professor A.S.P. Woodhouse of the University of Toronto who spoke on the subject: “Milton: Man and Poet” in 1954.
The first Sedgewick Memorial Lecture was delivered by A. S. P. Woodhouse in 1954. Source: U of Toronto Archives, 2005-62-2MS.
There were several Sedgewick lectures over the years, spanning at least from 1954 until 2005. The lectures were not always annual, however. This must be one of the most, if not the most, enduring memorial lecture series at UBC.
CVA 1504-10 – Emil Olcovich Shoe Company’s Labour Day picnic in Santa Monica canyon, California. 1919. J.W. Freeston, photo.
The panorama image shown above was made by B.C. professional photographer, John W. Freeston (1887-1923) in 1919.
He married Florence Mary Hall (ca1874-1944) ca1904 in England. He and Florence had two daughters (Elsie May and Kathleen Mary) and one son (Eric Walter). U.S. Census records put John and Florence in California during 1920-21. Indeed, Robert Moen has learned that the shoe company of which the subjects of the panorama were employees was the Emil Olcovich Shoe Company of Santa Monica. The photo appears to have been made in the Santa Monica Canyon on Labour Day, 1919, when the company was there for a staff picnic.
Early in May, 1923, Freeston was admitted to the New Westminster Hospital for the Insane (known by locals today by the shorthand, “Woodlands”). He was diagnosed soon thereafter with General Paresis. He slept poorly throughout his stay at Woodlands; rest was possible primarily through medication. Although his physical condition was considered good when he was admitted, scarcely two months later, it had deteriorated significantly. By the afternoon of July 30th, 1923, he was dead. He was 39 years old. Cause of death was recorded as “Exhaustion of General Paresis”.
Image of JWF cropped from above panorama photo, 1919.
JWF upon admission to the Hospital for the Insane, 1923.
Note that Freeston appears at both extremities of the panorama. The images are both of him, but his pose is quite different. In the leftmost portrait, he is holding the umbrella with both hands; however, in the rightmost one, his right arm is raised (in greeting?) while his left arm seems to be supporting the umbrella. I have been asked by a couple of people how Freeston was able to pull this off. I believe the answer is in this link. I think this still applied in 1919, when Freeston made this image.
Here is another panorama by J. W. Freeston and made, in my opinion, from First Baptist Church tower, looking north.
Note
¹I’m indebted to David Mattison of Camera Workers, Robert Moen of WestEndVancouver and Peter Findlay for their generous assistance with this post.
VPL7153. 752 Thurlow St. The first site of the crèche. 190-? P. T. Timms
Crèche is an old-fashioned term that referred — in the early years of the 20th century — to a day nursery for the kids of working moms. [1]
Typical husbands were assumed to be in the workforce and women to be working out of the home, caring for kids and keeping ‘the home fires burning’. But by the early years of the 20th century, it was dawning on some people that although this model was typical, it wasn’t universally true. Some husbands were unable to work for physical or other reasons; and some moms no longer had husbands — due to being widowed or to husbands’ drunkenness, abandonment, or other reasons.
Thus, it became expedient, in the period before there was a universal social safety net in Canada, for moms to seek employment. And yet, to do that meant that their kids either must be left at home alone or with a friend or relation who would care for them. Finding a child caregiver who was a friend or relative in a big city was problematic. Many moms came from other places and had few contacts here.
And so some wise and thoughtful people saw the importance of providing a form of institutional help for such moms and their kids. Notably, the Crèche was not initiated by the civic government. It was a creature of groups of people — mainly women’s groups, such as the IODE and the YWCA. The City was an early funder of the Crèche, however, although it didn’t take over the entire project until just before the Crèche moved out of the Thurlow house.
For three years (1912-15), the Crèche was based out of the Vancouver Women’s Building at 752 Thurlow Street. Moms would drop off their kids at the Crèche in the morning and pick them up again on their way home at the end of the work day. The kids would receive two square meals each day at the Crèche — lunch and supper. The Crèche charged 10 cents per day per child or 25 cents for three children — not to cover the real costs for the services provided, but as a way of reducing the sense among the moms that they were accepting charity. The rate of 10 cents/child was maintained at least until 1927. A body known as the Associated Charities (a Vancouver civic body) was at the head of the Crèche.
After the Crèche had been operating for 10 months, a report on its progress was submitted. A total of 4772 children had attended and of that number, there were 114 families and 143 individual kids. Children of working mothers from birth up to school age were admitted. In addition to the day care facility, there was also an Employment Bureau at the Crèche which was available to moms.
At the time of the 10-month report, it was noted that the Crèche had outgrown the Women’s Building. In 1915, the Crèche moved from 752 Thurlow to 1154 Haro. It remained there for scarcely two years. Early in 1917, it was shifted to the former City Hospital building at 530 Cambie (at Pender), putting it nearby other City Relief offices.
CVA 99-225: 1154 Haro Street, 1919 Stuart Thomson. This was the second site of the City Crèche from ca1914-ca1916. In December 1916, this became the Foundling’s Hospital (a sick kids hospital for those under 2 years of age) and the Creche was moved to SE corner of Cambie and Pender.
CVA Re N1.2 – Former City Hospital (530 Cambie at Pender) being used as a relief office, including the third site of City Crèche. July 1932.
CVA Bu P48 – Group portrait of children and supervisors at the third site of the City Crèche – S.E. corner of Pender and Cambie Streets, the site of the former City Hospital. ca1916. W J Moore.
The City Crèche was a press darling, especially as the Christmas season approached. Articles that were dripping in pathos would then begin to appear.
But not everyone was a fan of the Crèche. Various aldermen regularly publicly questioned why Vancouver was supporting it. Typically, city councillors were vexed at the cost of the Crèche.
The Crèche’s cost was the principal reason for its abandonment in 1932. That year saw the establishment of the Vancouver Foster Day Care Association. This put pre-school kids of moms who were working (or looking for work) in Foster homes. This proved to be much less expensive than the Crèche model. In recent years in Canada, day care of various sorts has become the purview of other (non-civic), levels of government.
Notes
A crèche could mean, depending on context, a nativity scene (which is the more commonly used definition today) or a foundling’s hospital (a hospital for orphans, but by the period covered in this post, essentially a sick kids hospital).
The Women’s Building fades to black for the rest of this post. However I should point out that the original wood frame building shown at the beginning of this post was replaced in 1926 with a concrete building which would house the women’s groups until 1940 (the original home wasn’t demolished, it was moved to the rear of the lot). In 1941, the 752 Thurlow Street property was sold to the Salvation Army and later to Oil Can Harry’s cabaret. In fact, the new 1926 Women’s Building stood until it was demolished to make way for the Carlyle condominium building in 1988 (Changing Vancouver).
VPL 1012 Interior of Easthope Brothers (Ernest & Percy) Gasoline Engines Launch and Boat Builders. 1908. PT Timms photo. Easthope Bros seems to have occupied the 1705 W Georgia space just prior to Western Machine Works, so I’m guessing the interior of WMW appeared similar to this.
William James Beer and Fannie Philips lived at 623 Richards Street — across Richards from the Holy Rosary (Roman Catholic) Church (as it then was), roughly on the land occupied later by the Dunsmuir Hotel. The neighbourhood was a ‘churchy’ one. In addition to Holy Rosary at the northern end of the 600 block Richards, there was St. Andrew’s Presbyterian anchoring the southern end of the block. The Congregational Church was a couple of blocks southwest of there. And First Baptist Church was then nearby at Hamilton and Dunsmuir.
William was a machinist by trade, and co-founded, with A. H. Thatcher, Western Machine Works at 1705 West Georgia Street. Fannie worked ‘at home’. The couple had come to Vancouver from Ontario; they were married there in 1890 [1]. They had two children in Vancouver, boys: Lyle (born 1893) and Leland Harold (born 1895).
On January 14, 1902, Fannie died at home of causes unknown to me [2]. She was 33 at the time. Her funeral was taken by Rev. L. Norman Tucker, Rector of Christ Church Cathedral. (Fanny was Anglican; William, Methodist).
A little over 13 years later, on July 13, 1915, William was struck by a “jitney” (an unlicensed taxi automobile) and died “almost instantly”. While nothing was said in the press about how Fannie died, William’s death was covered in detail.
Stepping from the curb to catch a Fraser avenue street car at the corner of Pacific and Granville street near the north end of Granville Bridge yesterday morning, William Beer . . . was killed almost instantly by a jitney driven by R. W. McClellan . . .
According to eye-witnesses the victim stepped from the curb on the west side of the bridge approach [this was the Granville bridge that preceded the current structure] to board a [street] car that was going north and was about to turn east along Pacific. A jitney had drawn up near the sidewalk and stopped. Mr. Beer stepped out from in front of this towards the standing street car, but just as he reached the open roadway between the standing jitney and the street car the motor car driven by McLellan came through. Mr. Beer endeavoured to go back but the car struck him fracturing his skull, and according to one witness carried him some distance before it was stopped. Dr. R. C. Boyle passing at the time ordered the man to the hospital and although G. Vaner in another automobile raced to that institution [VGH, presumably], the unfortunate man passed away before reaching the south end of Granville Bridge.
Sun. 14 July 1915
Crop of CVA 99-2234 – North end of the Granville Bridge. The site of William Beer’s demise in 1915. ca1925, Stuart Thomson photo.
If the description above strikes you as confusing, don’t feel badly. It was unclear to the jury, too. They had to go to the site where the death occurred and be shown exactly what had happened and where. However, it seems to me that Beer had been trying to catch a waiting street car and, when stepping into the street to do so, was struck by a jitney that was dodging the street car.
Mr. McClellan, the jitney driver, was found “not guilty” by the jury of the manslaughter charge brought by the Crown.
William was 40 at the time of his death. Leland was “living in the city” at the time of his father’s passing; Lyle was in the Army Medical Corps in Esquimalt. So, mercifully, the boys were not youngsters at the time of their Dad’s death; although when they lost their Mom, they were just 9 and 11.
Lyle and Leland both enlisted in the Great War. Leland, however was spelling his surname with an ‘s’ at the end. Leland succeeded his Dad in running Western Machine Works on Coal Harbour. Lyle was shown in he 1945 Vancouver directory as being “retired” (age 52), but from what, isn’t stated.
Leland died in 1937 (age 43). Lyle outlived Leland, dying at home (723 Hamilton, a rooming house) in 1950 (age 57) of a heart attack. There was no obituary in the local papers at Lyle’s death. Indeed, the “informant” for Lyle’s death certificate was an anonymous bureaucrat at the vital records office. Evidently, there were no next-of-kin to fill in the blanks as to Lyle’s life. Lyle never married.
Leland married Constance Graham in 1923 and together they had a daughter: Louise Elizabeth Beers, born in 1926. She became a nursing student at the University of Oregon. In December 1951, she married Neville Clegg Jones in Seattle (he was a medical student at U of O whose parents lived in Kelowna). Louise died in September 2004 in West Vancouver (Sun, 21 Sept 2004). Neville died in November 2017. Louise and Neville had two sons: Owen and Ian, both of whom married.
Notes
My thanks are due to Robert of westendvancouver.wordpress.com for his help tracking down the marriage certificate for W. J. and Fannie and for help with other details in this post.
Fannie’s death certificate is not available online and, as the microfilm section of VPL is currently closed (due to COVID restrictions), I’m unable to view it.
CVA Sp P74 – The interior of a shooting gallery on Cordova Street ca 1901.
A shooting gallery in late 19th and early 20th century Vancouver was a quite different place than is conjured by that term 100 years later. A shooting gallery in early Vancouver had nothing to do with illicit drugs. It was a commercial establishment where men could fire guns at targets.
Shooting galleries were sometimes incorporated into penny arcades. Penny arcades typically had penny- or nickel-operated machines for viewing “moving pictures” (which were called mutoscopes), strength testers, and automated musical instruments like player pianos or automatic banjos. If a shooting gallery wasn’t, strictly speaking, a penny arcade, many of them also had at least a player piano to create a bit of background music to the din of gunfire.
I did a rough survey of where most shooting galleries were located over the years between 1890 and 1930 and found that they were principally in the 100 blocks of East Hastings and East Cordova and the unit blocks of West Cordova and Water Streets. To help put this in context, allow me to cite some of the other businesses in a couple of these blocks in 1912.
On the 100 block of East Hastings there were three theatres (Rose, Crystal, and Pantages), at least three good hotels (including the Irving), the public library, several restaurants, a shoemaker and a couple of billiards halls. And on the unit block of West Cordova there was a theatre (the Grand), two booksellers (Cordova and Peoples), several shoe and clothing shops, and various restaurants. I share this to make it clearer that these were not down-at-the-heels blocks (as is true today, to a degree); this was a neighbourhood in which people of the time would regularly stroll without giving a second thought to their safety. [1]
Shooting galleries were lumped into the same category as bowling alleys, as far as civic licensing authorities were concerned. License fees were $10 annually. These were the fees in 1892, and it’s possible they rose in subsequent years. But even in the context of 1892, they seem to me to be low.
Licenses issued by City of Vancouver. 1892 Williams Illustrated Official BC Directory, p. 573.
It isn’t clear to me what criteria were used by the City in determining how much to charge a business for its license. But it is plain that the criteria did not include threat of injury or possible loss of life. You’d look a long time in local press accounts to find a case of a bowler who was hurt or killed inside an alley ($10) or at a junk dealer’s establishment ($100), to say nothing of a theatre ($100) or a pawnbroker’s shop ($300).
But the risk of loss of life or limb at or nearby a shooting gallery was very real, as I hope to show below.
Danger to Neighbours
Fraser’s Missiles
Percy Fraser, in 1910, had a business that occupied part of the ground floor space that was shared with a shooting gallery on Cordova, not far from Abbott. Fraser filed an injunction against shooting gallery owner, Valentine Straube.
[I]t was stated that a stenographer in [Fraser’s] employ had been nearly shot by bullets coming through the wall and when Mr. Fraser was sitting at his desk on Thursday the plaster from the wall fell upon it as the result of a missile coming through.
World, 15 Jan 1910
The injunction was granted by Mr. Justice Gregory; it restrained Straube from carrying on a shooting gallery at his premises on Cordova Street. (This wasn’t Straube’s first scrape with the law; he’d been convicted on at least three previous occasions for running a gaming house having slot machines).
Lee Sing’s Close Call
In March 1918, Lee Sing, a Chinese resident, was sleeping in his residence at the rear of 113 East Pender. He was woken by a bullet which went past his bed and into the wall. The police were informed of this.
Investigations were made by a representative of the law and the hole made by the bullet was found, but on its probable course being traced, it was found that it had come from a shooting gallery which is operated near the home of the Chinaman. A few words with the proprietor of the gallery resulted in steps being taken to eliminate the possibility of stray bullets in the future, and Lee again retired in safety to his couch.
World, 5 March 1918
The casualness with which this incident was treated by police of the time is remarkable. This may have been partly due to the race of the victim (not that that is any excuse).
Danger to Employees
The Troubling Case of Millicent McGregor
I imagine that 99% of the clientele at shooting galleries was male. Thus, it isn’t surprising that these establishments typically wanted to hire girls as a way of attracting punters.
Province. 21 August 1915.
An ad similar to the one above probably attracted the attention of a young girl who had been raised in Victoria and was looking to make some “good wages” in the big city of Vancouver. Millicent (Milly) McGregor got herself hired at the Wellington Arcade at 106 East Hastings Street. On August 26, 1923, the following episode happened:
A Russian named Andrew Karpensko and several companions were said to have entered the place with the intention of engaging in target practice. In some manner one of the target rifles was discharged, and the bullet lodged in the neck of Miss McGregor, who was the attendant in charge of the place. Karpensko was arrested and was held by the police for several days, but was released later. It was expected at first that Miss McGregor would recover.
Province, 9 April 1924
But Milly didn’t recover. She succumbed to her injury, caused by a .22-calibre bullet, eight months later while at Vancouver General Hospital. She was 19 when she died.
1930s and Later
By the mid-1930s, it seems, shooting galleries in the downtown core were falling out of fashion and falling afoul of civic decision-makers, probably partly due to the McGregor mess.
From the 1930s through the 1970s, shooting galleries seemed to be restricted to midways at exhibitions such as the PNE (the Straube family had a corner on Hastings Park’s shooting galleries for a number of years). Live rounds were still in use, mind you, and it wasn’t unheard of for someone to be hurt in shooting gallery incidents. By the 1980s, with the advent of more sophisticated video technologies, it became less important to have guns that fired real (versus electronic) bullets.
Reflections
During the 19-teens, there were some merchants who were vocally opposed to having shooting galleries in their neighbourhoods. But their rationale had nothing to do with public safety. The reason given by those who were opposed was that the galleries often included player pianos in them and this “hurdy-gurdy” racket was an offence to their ears.
In the late 1920s, presumably partly in response to the McGregor incident, there was some talk of banning women from working in shooting galleries. But, even if this idea had “legs” (and it didn’t), it wouldn’t have been a solution to the real problem. The gender of the attendants wasn’t the issue. The real problem was the fact that live ammo was being fired in a pretty densely populated area — and that the civic authorities didn’t have the guts to do anything about it.
Notes
There was also a shooting gallery (and a bowling alley) included in the basement of the Beatty Street Drill Hall when it was under construction ca1900. There was also a shooting gallery at the Vancouver squad HQ of the B.C. Provincial Police.
I regret to report, for those of you who are not already aware of it, that Vancouver’s gentleman-artist-historian, Gordon Poppy, has passed away. Gordon has had several mentions in VanAsItWas over the years, including this one which featured Gordon’s window displays in 1954 in which the B.C. Lions were featured.
As a final tribute to my friend, this post will share some other images which he was generous enough to allow me to produce while I was visiting him at his home about a year ago. These are of other Eaton’s window displays with which he was involved over the years.
This display was evidently intended to encourage onlookers to “Look Your Best This Easter”. n.d. Gordon Poppy Collection.
I’m not sure whether or not this was part of the same year’s display above. But it certainly emphasizes bunnies! n.d. Gordon Poppy Collection.
As does this one! n.d. Gordon Poppy Collection.
The handwritten caption says it all. n.d. Gordon Poppy Collection.
I’m not sure whether this one was also part of the Eaton’s “British Promotion” or if this was a Christmas display. n.d. Gordon Poppy Collection.
This is the first in a series of four photos showing the results of vandalism at Eaton’s windows. n.d. Gordon Poppy Collection.
Tidying up the mess left by vandals. n.d. Gordon Poppy Collection.
Sweeping up. n.d. Gordon Poppy Collection.
“Come on, me dearie, this is no place for you to hang about.” n.d. Gordon Poppy Collection.
This toadstool display (with mice and the ubiquitous bunny) was another Easter window. n.d. Gordon Poppy Collection.
This window was probably meant to celebrate the onset of spring (and spring fashions). n.d. Gordon Poppy Collection.
I’m assuming this one was a Christmas window. n.d. Gordon Poppy Collection.
Probably not celebrating any special season. Likely just to advertise the clothes on these hip chicks. n.d. Gordon Poppy Collection.
A window featuring some of the technology which Canada brought to the war theatre? n.d. Gordon Poppy Collection.
I think this was one of Gordon’s favourite displays. The characters in the window were composed principally of handkerchiefs. n.d. Gordon Poppy Collection.
CVA 180-1546: Old automobiles in 1949 P.N.E. Opening Day Parade passing in front of partly demolished Hotel Vancouver #2 at Georgia near Granville. Note: The middle vehicle shows the McAdam family driving the 1907 Cadillac. 1949, Artray photo.
Wilson was born in Kitchener, ON in 1869. He graduated from medical school at the University of Manitoba in 1897 and the next year went to Vancouver where he practiced medicine. Thomas was a Presbyterian and his bride, Clara May Mitchell (an American) was a Baptist. They were married in First Baptist Church at Hamilton and Dunsmuir in August 1898 by the first real minister there, Rev. W. T. Stackhouse. Wilson died in 1927 at the early age of 58. His funeral service was taken by Rev. J. J. Ross (First Baptist) and Rev. J. S. Henderson (St. Andrew’s Presbyterian). Clara May died in 1962 at Trail, BC, where she lived from 1937. (Both Thomas and Clara May were buried in Mountain View Cemetery, Vancouver).
During some of his early Vancouver years, Wilson lived at the NE corner of Hastings and Dunlevy until the Patricia Hotel was built by him on that site. He moved to 1142 Chilco Street (aka ”Chula Vista”) in 1913 (which he also built), where he lived out his days. Clara May and Thomas had two kids: Anna Marjorie and Frank Lloyd. Frank became a physician living in Trail. Frank died in Trail in 1982. Marjorie died in Vancouver in 1983.
Wilson first registered his 1907 Cadillac in September 1908. He then renewed its registration in 1909, 1910, and in 1911. Where Wilson bought the car isn’t clear, but presumably it came from a local dealer. There were a limited number of Cadillac dealers in Vancouver in 1907-08. Terminal City Garage was one, located at 300 Howe, across the street from Orpheum II. Another was W. M. Stark’sVancouver Auto and Cycle (108 E. Hastings).
Wilson seems to have sold the Cadillac sometime between 1910-14. The second owner, David McAdam, registered the Cadillac in 1914. McAdam lived in Murrayville, which vintage car expert, Peter Findlay, describes as “a very long drive for this car.” It has remained in the family since that date, being passed down from David to his son, Quinton, who worked hard to get the Cadillac up and running in time for the 1949 PNE (it is Quinton, his wife and daughter who appear in the middle vintage car shown above).
The Cadillac runs on a single cylinder, so it sounds unlike any other automobile I’ve ever heard. There is a clip of the Cadillac running here.
A recent photo of the Cadillac appears below.
1907 Cadillac in Greater Vancouver, 2020. MDM Photo.
Opening of first Orpheum at the former Crystal Theatre. Province. 28 Sept 1904.
Thefirst Orpheum Theatre in Vancouver opened on October 3, 1904. [1] It had formerly been the Crystal Theatre (1903-04) at 55 West Cordova (there is a parking garage there, today). The proprietors of Orpheum I were Evenson & Russell.
At the opening of the first Orpheum, vaudeville acts included the Anderson sisters (child comedians), The Rustics with a sketch titled “Fun on the Farm” which included “lifelike mechanical animals”, and vocalist Joe Bonner singing “Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder” (Province 3 Oct 1904).
Little else is known of the Orpheum’s first location and as far as I can tell, no photos still exist. It ceased to operate as the Orpheum by the summer of 1905.
Orpheum II (805 West Pender): 1905-13
Crop of CVA 73-2-Vancouver, B.C., 1911, H. O. Dodge photo. Aerial image of Orpheum II at NW corner Pender & Howe. (Formerly People’s Theatre and Alhambra Theatre). This is where the Stock Exchange Building is located today.
The name of the former People’s Theatre was not settled at that time, however. It was initially announced by Sullivan and Considine that the former People’s would be named the Grand Theatre. However, they ultimately changed their minds about that since another of their properties (on Cordova) was already so-named and they didn’t want to create confusion among the public as to which theatre was being referred. So, it was decided to name the Pender property the Orpheum Theatre (Province 11 Aug 1906). [2]
In March 1906, S&C announced plans to rip down the former People’s Theatre and to build a brand new theatre building for an estimated $100,000 (Province 16 March 1906). Considine announced that it would be constructed of steel, brick and concrete (as opposed to the wood frame construction of People’s) and that it would have a seating capacity of about 2000 (Province 16 March 1906). Considine optimistically claimed that with the new house “There should be no quibbling with the building inspector or the civic authorities…for it will be made just as thoroughly fireproof and as safe as modern ingenuity and [C&S architect] Mr. [J. J.] Donnellan’s long experience in designing buildings of this kind can suggest” (Province 15 March 1906). [3]
But sometime between March and August, S&C changed course. A decision was made not to demolish the former theatre and build a completely new one. A “bunch of contracts in connection with the remodelling of the Orpheum were awarded today by Architect Donnellan” (Province 11 Aug 1906; emphasis mine). Plans for the remodelling included no fewer than 15 exits from the theatre (not including fire exits), and seating capacity of over 1000 (Province 11 Aug 1906).
City of Vancouver Building Inspector, George McSpadden said at the time that he was “well pleased” with safety features planned for the theatre (Province 11 Aug 1906). But a month later, McSpadden had changed his tune. He complained the theatre was 5 inches out of plumb and that there was a significant bulge at the centre due to the removal of an iron tie rod (20 Sept 1906).
There seemed to be a growing personal rift between Donnellan and McSpadden, as it was reported days later that Donnellan was “impatient at the delay in opening the theatre, and says rather sarcastic things about Building Inspector McSpadden” (Province 25 Sept 1906).
These ‘shots’ from McSpadden and Donnellan were the first of many from S&C and the City for about 3 months. While there was much talk about fire escapes and the bulge in the Howe Street wall, the basic issue in my judgement seems to have been that the principals — McSpadden and Donnellan — rubbed one another the wrong way, thereby turning what should have been a ‘mole-hill’ into a ‘mountain’.
By early December 1906, the City decided it would allow the Orpheum to open conditionally upon the following (none of which, as far as I can tell was ever disputed by S&C):
installation of 2 iron posts; and a tie-rod;
substitution of an iron fire-escape for a wooden one;
a promise that the wall facing Howe Street would be made as plumb as possible;
and an illustration (”for a few doubting aldermen”) of the rapidity with which the theatre could be vacated (Province 11 Dec 1906).
Finally, 12 months after S&C took over the Orpheum on Pender, it was allowed to open to the public on December 17, 1906.
Interestingly, the Pender building operated as the Orpheum for seven years without a public safety incident. George McSpadden eventually left his job as City Building Inspector to become a city alderman. The Pender building was demolished in 1913 or 1914. In its stead, there was an auto supply house for some years, followed by the Stock Exchange Building in 1929.
Orpheum III (761 Granville Street): 1913-1927
CVA 99-5150 – Interior of Orpheum III. Flashlight of audience, Feb 1918. Stuart Thomson photo.
On St. Patrick’s Day, 1913, S&C put on their first vaudeville performance in the space that had once housed the Vancouver Opera House. Presumably, Sullivan & Considine were hoping that a little Irish luck would rub off and that the City building inspector wouldn’t create a big stink akin to that at their previous theatre. (The city inspector — who by this time was not George McSpadden — gave S&C thumbs up!)
Before I began the research for this post, I had thought when the Orpheum moved over to the Opera House, that very little was changed. But I was mistaken. Said the World upon the Orpheum’s opening, “Very little of the old structure now remains, with the exception of portions of the two side walls…” (World 8 March 1913).
Cross-section of the S&C re-building of the old Vancouver Opera House into Orpheum III. Courtesy: Tom Carter Collection.
Orpheum III was the first Orpheum (and perhaps the first of any theatre in Vancouver) which was built to house services in addition to the theatre. The Orpheum ‘office building’ (751 Granville) was “a modern five-storey steel, concrete, terra cotta and brick office and store building known as a class “A” fireproof structure” (World 8 March 1913). This served as a mortgage helper since the lease payments from other businesses in the Orpheum Building would help pay down what must have been substantial debt incurred by S&C in building the theatre.
The architect of Orpheum III was J. J. Donnellan (who, reportedly, also designed local theatres such as the Lonsdale, Panama, National and Columbia (and, of course, did the rebuild on the Pender Orpheum). The sum spent by S&C on Orpheum III varied widely depending on which newspaper you read. One claimed they spent upwards of $250,000; another said $400,000; and yet another claimed $750,000!
For a couple of years, starting in 1914, there was considerable to-ing-and-fro-ing in the ownership of the Orpheum. A little over a year after Orpheum III opened, it was bought from S&C by Marcus Loew (Sun 17 June 1914). During the period that Loew owned the building, it would be known as “Loew’s Theatre (Formerly Orpheum)”; while it was Loew’s Theatre, it remained a vaudeville theatre. A year later and the Orpheum had been bought back from Loew by Sullivan & Considine (Province 17 May 1915).
No sooner had the local press reported that S&C was owner once again of the Orpheum, however, than there was another report (a month later) that the Orpheum Theatre & Realty Co. of San Francisco had bought out S&C’s interest in the Theatre (Province 29 July 1915). [4]
The Orpheum III adopted a mixed format with a few months of each year dedicated to vaudeville and the balance of the year to concerts, speakers, and motion pictures. This policy was adopted for awhile in Orpheum IV, as well.
The theatre underwent several name changes over subsequent years: Vancouver Theatre (1928); Lyric (1935); International Cinema (1947); and again Lyric Theatre (1960). Sometime after 1960, the former lobby even opened as a branch of the Royal Bank (leaving the auditorium/stage marooned behind) (Province 8 March 1969). The building was demolished in 1969 to make way for a series of department stores: T. Eaton’s, then Sears, and most recently, Nordstrom’s.
Orpheum IV (884 Granville Street): 1927 –
CVA 791-1148 – The fourth (and current) Orpheum Theatre on the east side of Granville Street (884 Granville). January, 1986.
On April 3, 1926, local entrepreneur Joseph F. Langer and the Orpheum Theatrical Co. announced their agreement to build the fourth Orpheum for an estimated cost of about $1 million and would have a seating capacity of about 3000 (Province 3 April 1926).[5] Langer would build it and the Orpheum Circuit was to lease it for 20 years but, as is explained in my related post about Langer’s life — linked above — he received some poor advice and sold the Orpheum in 1929. Marcus Priteca was architect on the project.
The fourth Orpheum opened to the public on Monday, November 7, 1927. There was a mixture of vaudeville acts (including juggling, comedy, and dancing) and a feature film (The Wise Wife). During many of the fourth Orpheum’s years, it was a Famous Players movie cinema.
For details of the history of Orpheum IV, I’d recommend consulting Ivan Ackery’s Fifty Years on Theatre Row, his memoirs of managing that theatre (1935-69).
There are many jaw-dropping features of the theatre, even today. My personal favourite is the dome above the auditorium. But there was no painted mural on the dome in 1927. It wasn’t there until 1976, when Anthony Heinsbergen was commissioned to paint his “valentine to the romance of music” (Province 24 June 1976). Province writer, Roy Shields, was apparently part of a vocal minority who, by the 1970s, believed the Orpheum was in “bad taste”, “high camp”, and a “monument to kitsch”.
But I disagree. I join the majority (I suspect) of those of Vancouver as it was in 1927 and beyond who have beheld with admiration and great affection the Fourth Orph!
Long-time Orpheum IV manager, Ivan Ackery, in his memoirs Fifty Years on Theatre Row, claimed that “Vancouver’s first Orpheum was in the 900 block Main Street [Westminster Avenue at the time, presumably] in what later became a secondhand store and where, for many years, the original proscenium continued to exist in the back of the store. The first vaudeville act to ever appear there was “Power’s Elephants”” (Ackery, p. 128). I regret to say that I was unable to find any evidence to support Mr. Ackery’s claim as to the location of the first Orpheum. I could find no newspaper clippings to support the Westminster Ave. address for any theatre. And I couldn’t find any Orpheum advertised or noted in any way earlier than the inheritor of the Crystal Theatre locale. Ackery was born in 1899 and arrived in Vancouver from the U.K. after WWI, so he couldn’t have been a witness of the first Orpheum. Chances are that he was shown the “proscenium” in what was considered by the owner (and perhaps others) to have once been the Orpheum and was thereby led down one of history’s many ‘garden paths’.
“Orpheum” was not exactly a novel name. It had been applied to theatres in many other cities (Seattle and San Francisco, for instance, both of which were part of the Orpheum Circuit for a time). Within the City of Vancouver, there were several non-theatrical businesses which tied their fortunes to the Orpheum name: There were Orpheum Cafes across the street from both Orpheums II and III; there was an Orpheum Hotel for a time on West Hastings (prior to that, the hotel was called Hamilton House; later it was called the Invermay Hotel); there was an Orpheum Poolroom on Pender, an Orpheum Cigar Store, and an Orpheum Barber Shop.
James J. Donnellan (architect) was a native of Chicago, Illinois.
Local theatre expert, Tom Carter, succinctly describes the fall of S&C: “Mr. Sullivan apparently had been borrowing money to build theatres against other theatres he didn’t actually own (had mortgages on) so it had become a bit of a pyramid scheme. He was also losing his mind – in fact was declared insane in 1913 – and wandered into a railroad yard and, some say, committed suicide by walking in front of a train. After that, S&C kept their Empress vaudeville circuit but divested themselves of their theatres – the two vultures who picked them up at fire sale prices were Marcus Loew and Alex Pantages. Pantages was already intent on building the new Pantages Theatre at 20 West Hastings so passed on the Orpheum, but Loew swept in.” (Email: Tom Carter to mdm, July 26, 2020, 10.01 a.m.)
Ladies who have taken in a performance at the Orpheum IV will be bemused by the claim that restrooms would be “spacious” (Province 3 April 1926).
CVA 447-334: Tip Top Tailors at 314 West Hastings Street (near Hamilton). Adjacent to (west of) the former Commerce Bank (now SFU’s Charles Chang Innovation Centre). 1955. W E Frost.
There’s a building on West Hastings near Hamilton about which I’ve had a long-standing misconception. It’s sweeping facade reminded me so much of a 1940s-style movie theatre that I’ve always assumed that that was the original occupant. [1]
But I was wrong. This building was constructed for Tip Top Tailors in 1948, in the days when Tip Top provided not only clothing for men (as it does today), but also catered to women who wanted to have a “mannish” appearance.
CVA 371-1150: The corner of the Canadian Bank of Commerce at 300 West Hastings; and showing scaffolding for future site of Tip Top Tailors at 314 W, Hastings. 1948, G. Clarke.
Province. 10 Feb 1949.
Province. 26 Jan 1949.
Tip Top Tailors was established in 1909 in Toronto. The first Vancouver shop was at 137 West Hastings (north side of Hastings between Cambie and Abbot) in 1920. The shop moved to the Flack Block (at Hastings and Cambie) and later to 301 West Hastings before building its shop at 314 W Hastings in 1948.
CVA 586-7781: Tip Top Tailors interior. Style (fashion) Show. 1949. Don Coltman.
CVA 586-7779: Tip Top Tailors interior. Style (fashion) Show. 1949 Don Coltman.
CVA 586-8837: This is apparently the mezzanine floor of Tip Top at 314 West Hastings. 1949. Don Coltman.
The first two of the three photos above show a 1949 “Style Show” of some of the women’s wear options available from Tip Top at that time. All three photos show off the truly unusual and exceptional interiors that were at 314 West Hastings.
More than 5000 square feet of aluminum was used on the facade and interior of Tip Top. Anodizing (to prevent rust and corrosion) was done by Western Bridge and Steel Fabricators (Province, 18 Dec 1948).
By 1955, Tip Top had moved out of 314 Hastings. (Tip Top continued at a Granville Street location and, today, continues to exist in several lower mainland locales). By 1960, 314 W. Hastings was home (briefly) to “Drug King Self Serve Supermarket”. From ca1961, after Drug King faded to black, the space has been subdivided for use by various offices. Today, little has changed: 312 is currently an empty office rental, and 314 is a cafe. [2]
It is a shame, in my judgement, that the amazing interior space that once was home to Tip Top Tailors should be, effectively, lost.
Sun. 7 Sept 1960.
Notes
It resembles the Vogue Theatre (on Granville Street) with its grand exterior and the sweeping curves of the interior design. I was stumped as to how to refer to the architectural style of Tip Top. However, “Streamline Deco” seems to me to cover off the transitional aspects of the style. For more on this, see here. Thanks to Wes for this link.
Following Tip Top’s exit from this location and the subsequent subdivision, the street address was also subdivided to 312 and 314.
The ‘Tudor Rose’ wood carving (together with provenance presumably provided by C. B. Fowler on the plaque below) is encased in a very heavy box made of oak and glass. This was generously given to the author a few years ago by his friend, Gordon Poppy, who acquired it sometime following the closure and demolition of the York Hotel (1929-1969), previously the Hotel Vancouver Annex (1911-1929). Author’s photo.
This carving of a Tudor Rose was taken from the tomb of the Duke of York, Tewkesbury Abbey, England, in the year of 1881 when repairs were being made to the tomb. The same year it was given to Major C. B. Fowler, FRIBA., now of this city, but at that time an architect of renown in Cardiff, Wales, by William Clark of Llandaff, Wales, one of the best known wood carvers in England and Wales in that period. The carving is now the valued property of The York Hotel, Ltd.
Text on plaque beneath carving.
Provenance Questions
The provenance offered for the wood carving shown above is provided by the accompanying plaque beneath it. I am assuming that the text for the plaque came, largely, from then-Vancouver architect and giver of the Rose to the York Hotel, Major C. B. Fowler.
Tudor Rose?
The carving appears to me to my Canadian eyes to resemble a Tudor Rose (see link for criteria), although there is no crown denoting the rose as being of the House of Tudor.
William Clark, Welshman?
There was a Welshman by the name of William Clark who lived in Llandaff in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and who, by the time of the 1911 census identified his occupation as a Sculptor Builder.
Duke of York’s Tomb at Tewkesbury Abbey?
It appears very doubtful that the rose came from the tomb of a Duke of York, although it’s possible that it came from Tewkesbury Abbey. I say this because I cannot find any online evidence that any of the (several) Dukes of York were buried in Tewkesbury Abbey. There is evidence that Tewkesbury Abbey underwent renovations in 1881, however. So it’s possible that the carving came from the Abbey at that time.
Major Charles Busteed Fowler
VPL 21042: Portrait of Major Charles Busteed Fowler. 1920. Dominion Photo.
Drawing of Grandview Drill Hall (not built). Province, 7 Aug 1915.
C. B. Fowler (1849-1941), FRIBA (Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects) was born in Cork, Ireland. He trained at the School of Art in Cork. Much of his early architectural career was spent in Wales. He was apparently having a hard time finding commissions by about 1900 and left Wales (and his first wife, Mary Elizabeth Martin) in 1904 to move to London to search (not very successfully) for work.
In 1904 and again in 1907, Fowler was charged in Wales on a warrant for neglecting to monetarily support his wife (who was living – apart from Fowler – in Wales) (Cardiff Evening Express 4 Nov 1904; Cardiff Weekly Mail, 7 Dec 1907).
It isn’t entirely clear if Fowler ever completely disentangled himself from his money and spousal issues, but in 1908 he sailed for New York on the Adriatic. Fowler spent five years in America, getting the occasional commission. Finally, in 1913, he filed a petition to become a naturalized U.S. citizen. His petition was denied for “lack of prosecution.”* Fowler married his second wife, Lillian S. sometime around 1909 (she was mentioned in his 1910 US Census record). It isn’t clear whether she came to the U.S. with Charles; according to the Census, she was born in Wales. She was 25 — half his age.
The Fowlers came to Vancouver in 1913. Here, he entered into partnership with R.T. Perry, a local architect who had articled with Fowler in Wales.
Fowler designed the Oddfellow’s Hall at 1433 West 8th Avenue (it is still there) (Biographical Dictionary of Architects in Canada). He and Perry also submitted a drawing for the Harding Memorial competition in 1924, but his submission wasn’t chosen (local sculptor, Charles Marega, won the competition) (Province, 9 Dec 1924). Fowler and Perry also submitted drawings for the Grandview Drill Hall in 1914. But, although this submission was accepted, the Federal Government ultimately decided not to build the Hall and the land was turned over to the City of Vancouver which developed it into (extant) Grandview Park on Commercial Drive.
It isn’t clear in what year Fowler made his gift of the Tudor Rose to the York Hotel. There is no record of that in local press accounts that I could find. However, it would have been sometime between 1929 (when the former Hotel Vancouver Annex became the “York Hotel”) and 1941 (the year of Fowler’s death). Probably shortly after the Annex became the York, so that would be in the early 1930s. It is pretty clear that the rationale for the gift of the Tudor Rose to the Hotel was the Duke of York connection, which in the light of what I was able to find, today, seens pretty doubtful.
Major Fowler lived to be 91 and he was a press darling, especially in his later years. He had the vanity that sometimes accompanies very old age. But there is no question that the man was fit. A few days before his 80th birthday, he hiked the Grouse Grind (although it wasn’t then called that). And he was known for competing in Vancouver Sun walking marathons. In his 80s, he came in fifth in one of those races.
Lillian married William H. Martin in 1960; she died in 1964.
The Rose
It seems to me as though C. B. Fowler had a somewhat muddled understanding of some of the history of the carving which he gave to the York Hotel. It is possible that the rose was removed from Tewkesbury Abbey in 1881 and acquired by William Clark either in Wales or in Tewkesbury. Clark may well have passed the carving onto Fowler in Wales, when Fowler was working there in the mid-1880s or later. The only aspect of Fowler’s story that certainly seems to be wrong is that the rose came from the tomb of a Duke of York at the Abbey.
Note
*Robert, of WestEndVancouver.wordpress.com, looked into Fowler’s money and spousal troubles and his life in America.
Robert has said that “want of prosecution generally means a failure to take legal steps within a certain period of time…The term may have different meanings based on the specific geographic jurisdiction, area of law, or the context in which it is being used.”
CVA 1184-2104: An audience at the Orpheum Theatre watching Nabob’s Harmony House broadcast over CBC. 1940-48 Jack Lindsay.
The “Harmony House” radio variety show was the first commercial radio program originating in the West to be put on CBC’s network. It was broadcast live from the Orpheum Theatre, starting in September 1943 [1]. The corporate sponsor of Harmony House was Nabob. Nabob Tea and other products were manufactured and distributed locally by the Kelly Douglas Company (the head office of which was located just east of the CPR deport in the building known today as The Landing and where Steamworks is located) [2]. Harmony House ran on radio from 1943-55 and then on CBC Television for the 1955-56 season.
CVA 586-5270 – Richmond (“Ricky”) Hyslop and his Harmony House Orchestra. 1944. Don Coltman photo.
Richmond (“Ricky”) Hyslop led the Harmony House Orchestra throughout the radio years and the television season. Hyslop, it seems to me, is one of the unsung and, today, pretty much forgotten, music men of Vancouver’s past. He began as a violinist, was a writer and arranger and, of course, a band leader. The Sun gave some idea of his working life on Harmony House:
For 39 weeks through the winter, Hyslop leads 17 musicians, two soloists, Pat Morgan and Suzanne [Sysak], and a vocal group of five through their paces on Harmony House. The program goes on the air Tuesday evenings and gets as far east as Fort William [Ontario] on the Dominion [CBC] Network.
But before the show hits the air he has to arrange the music, handle rehearsals, soothe the temperamental characters, calm down the excitable ones, ginger up the guys who are half a beat behind and generally set the tone for the operation.
A band leader these days is businessman, musician, trainer, father confessor and idea man all rolled into one.
Vancouver Sun 23 Aug 1952
Hyslop had other responsibilities concurrent with those on Harmony House. Not least, he worked on the production of “Here’s Juliette”, also on the CBC Network, which featured Suzanne’s sister, ‘our pet’, Juliette (Sysak). (Both women preferred to use only their first names, professionally).
The Master of Ceremonies and principal male soloist of the show was tenor, Pat (“Buster”) Morgan. He had a long career, and was known when Harmony House moved to TV, as “the best vocalist in Canada.”
CVA 586-3040 – Pat (‘Buster’) Morgan, M.C. and Soloist for Nabob’s Harmony House. 1944. Don Coltman photo.
CVA 586-3044: “Suzanne” Sysak, soloist of Nabob’s Harmony House (sister of another CBC singer, ‘Our Pet’ Juliette). 1944. Don Coltman photo.
CVA 586-8895: An incarnation of the Nabobettes Trio: Margaret (“Bunty”) Wishart, Marion (“Mamie”) Wishart (sister of Bunty), and Vera Zimmerman. 1945. Don Coltman. [3]
The Nabobettes was a girl group composed of different people at different times. They included Mamie Wishart, Bunty Wishart, Vera Zimmerman, and Thora Anders. Thora Anders had a long music career in Vancouver and sung with many groups, including several productions for Theatre Under the Stars (TUTS). She was also closely associated with Barney Potts and his orchestra, ultimately marrying him.
Note
One of the broadcasts, however, on June 5, 1944, was made from the Vogue Theatre.
A reader of this blog has remarked that she can recall the words to the advertising jingle adopted by Nabob. Apparently, they were (in part): “N-A-B-O-B : The very best coffee and tea.” I tried to find an online source of this with the tune, but had no luck. Nabob Tea was sluggging it out in the 1980s with some serious competition (principally, although not exclusively, from Red Rose). As you will see from the links, this slug-fest was carried out by gently mocking the Mother Country. “Pity.” The Nabob brand was ultimately purchased by Kraft. The Nabob character – which isn’t particularly politically correct – has been abandoned in favour of simply including part of a Nabob’s imagined head gear).
Thanks are due to Robert of WestEndVancouver.wordpress.com for his help in identifying the Nabobettes portrayed here.
CVA 586-1588: 201st Battery Smoker, 1943, Don Coltman.
This is a very brief post to point out a couple of interesting aspects of this WWII-era “Smoker” (a social gathering that typically included tobacco smoking and alcohol drinking) of the 201st Battery, held in downtown Vancouver.
First, I should point out that I am not a smoker, but I am inclined to salute these fellows who are smoking in a hall in which it is clearly marked above them “Fire Regulations Do Not Permit Smoking in This Room”. I count at least five in this bunch who are holding cigarettes. I’m feeling a little rebellious these days, so I wanted to point that out!
Second, the room in which these gents were having a cigarette and a beer is no longer in existence. It was known during WWII as “Victory Hall” (The Province, 24 Sept 1943) and was on the property where Salvation Army’s Belkin House is today: 535 Homer (half a block north of Dunsmuir on the west side of the street). How the building appeared in the mid-1970s is shown below. According to Changing Vancouver, the building was demolished in 2001.
CVA 780-39: 535 Homer Street, 1975.
An interesting feature of the room in which the smoker was held (which seems to be the top floor, judging from the Italianate-style windows) is apparent in another photo of this smoker at CVA’s online photo holdings, shown below.
CVA 586-1587: 201st Battery Smoker, 1943, Don Coltman.
No, I’m not referring to the hula dancers.
The items that caught my eye were the paintings on the wall. This was something not uncommon in the 1930s and ’40s. There are examples of wall paintings of this sort of fantasy coastal scenery in other Vancouver buildings of this period. The only remaining such paintings that I can think of, however, are at Commodore Lanes on Granville Street.
These paintings at 535 Homer probably didn’t last into the 1970s, I’m guessing. They don’t appear to have been very high quality even in 1943.
And all of that illicit smoke must have taken its toll!
Information on [J. F.] Langer is . . . difficult to find. There’s nothing on him in the City of Vancouver Archives, nothing in the Special Collections Division of the Vancouver Public Library, precious little elsewhere. — Chuck Davis, “A Palace of Entertainment: Vancouver’s Orpheum Turns Seventy-Five”. British Columbia Historical News. Vol. 36, No. 2 (Spring 2003), p. 17.
Photo from Doug McCallum’s Vancouver’s Orpheum: The Life of a Theatre. Here, Langer appears to be upon his stallion, Salvador.
I was re-reading Ivan Ackery’s memoirs, recently, when I came across mention of one J.F. Langer. He was the man who built the present Orpheum Theatre (B. M. Priteca, architect) and several Vancouver suburban movie theatres (none extant, except the Orpheum).
Why hadn’t I heard of this guy before, I wondered? Surely there must be more to his story. So I began to dig. And dig. And I discovered what Chuck Davis had learned earlier: that the smallest detail about Langer is hard won (1).
I make no claim to have written the ‘last word’ on Mr. Langer, but I think I’ve filled in a couple of public blanks about his life and career.
South Africa
Joseph Francis Langer was born in Langendorf, Silesia, Prussia (now a village known as Bozonov, located in southern Poland near the Czech border) in March, 1872 to Eduard and Caroline Langer. Joseph was born into a Church of England family (although the family was registered in a Catholic parish). The Langer family didn’t stay in Prussia long after Joseph was born, however. By the time he reached 6 years of age, the family was settled in South Africa in the territory of Transvaal. Eduard owned Langlagate Royal Gold Mining Co. in Johannesburg.
Joseph Langer. Photo courtesy of Susan Oddy. Date unknown.
During his time in South Africa, Joseph apprenticed as a bricklayer and began to take construction jobs. In 1891, Joseph (age 19) went to London where he established his own construction company. By 1893, he returned to Johannesburg where he continued in the construction business. Many of his jobs consisted of home-building. But there were other projects that supported the South African mining industry, including construction of a cyanide plant. I wasn’t able to find any details about this job, but then (as now) gold cyanidation was an important means of extracting gold in mining operations.
Henrietta Van Coller Langer. Photo courtesy of Susan Oddy. Date unknown.
Langer married Henrietta Maria (Hattie) Van Coller in 1893 (1869-1932) in South Africa. She bore 9 kids. They were: May Helena, who was known as “Daisy” (1894-1995); Cecil Edward (1896-1962); Ivy Elaine (1897-1899); Dorothy Ivy (1901-1986); Clarence Basil (1902-1979); Elaine Bertha (1904-1937, who died from lymphnoma; an unnamed child who died at birth; Ivan Clifford (1906-1950s?); Dora Caroline (1912-2002). Dora was the last of the children born to Hattie and Joseph; she was the only child born in Vancouver.
San Francisco/Vancouver/England
In 1908 (when Langer was 36), he left South Africa for the San Francisco/Oakland area. There, he continued to build homes for a living. Sometime in 1909, he moved to Vancouver. He worked as a general contractor, principally on residential builds.
Shortly after the Great War began, Langer left Canada for England. He said of his financial status upon leaving for England in 1914: “I had no money when I went back” (3). Langer seems to have been telling a ‘porkie’ here. It’s true that Langer left several creditors in the Vancouver area. (4) But, according to his grand-daughter, Susan Oddy, “My mother [Dora Langer] said that the family lived in wealth until the stock market crash [1929]. Joseph may have had some financial ups and downs before that, but nothing serious. Certainly, he retained some of his wealth in his London investments.”
Langer claimed that he was ‘robbed’ by certain Vancouver interests while working here the first time (5). Precisely which firms Langer was pointing at with this claim is unclear, with one exception: he made it pretty plain that he held the architectural firm of Townsend & Townsend to blame for at least some of his financial woes (6). He doesn’t get into any detail about precisely how these architects ‘robbed’ him. It could well be that his antipathy regarding the firm was an extreme case of the not unusual ‘oil and water’ situation between architects and builders. It strikes me as odd that he lashed out at the Townsends, however, as there is no record in the online list of early Vancouver building permits of any projects on which Langer was builder on the same jobs as the Townsends were architects. Possibly, the online record is incomplete. It just isn’t clear.
Langer’s next nine years were spent in England earning, by all accounts, a lot of money in the construction business; his net worth, by his own admission, was in the vicinity of $2 million toward the end of his time in England (7). According to Douglas McCallum, he was a “pioneer in developing planned suburbs, which included sidewalks, gutters, sewers and street lighting.” (8). Presumably that was what he was what he was up to in England.
Vancouver Again
Setting Up House
Joseph Langer. Photo courtesy of Susan Oddy. Date unknown.
By August 1923, Langer turned 51 and that year he took his millions and re-settled in Vancouver. It seems that his plan upon returning to the Canadian west coast was “not to do anything at all” (9). He was ready to put down tools and enjoy an ‘early retirement’ in the land of the Lotus.
Upon returning to Vancouver, Joseph and Hattie took up residence at 1715 Woodland Drive (near East 1st Ave. in the Grandview district); Woodland Drive was one of Langer’s planned communities.
A 5-minute walk from Woodland Dr., at Commercial Dr., lived a couple named Jennie and Harold Farley. Jennie and Hattie Langer became friends. Joseph and Jennie became something more than friends.
Shortly after arriving in Vancouver for the second time, Joseph married Jennie Louise Farley (nee Inns). Jennie had just divorced her husband, Harold Farley, with whom she’d had four kids: Jack (1904); Barbara (1906), Harold Jr. (1908), and Frank (1920). Hattie and Joseph were separated in 1924. Jennie and Joseph were married by a Justice of the Peace in Washington State in December 1925, and he divorced Henrietta on July 2, 1926.
Henrietta died from cancer January 15, 1932 and is buried in Acton Cemetary.
In 1924, Langer bought a new home for himself and his bride-to-be at 3290 Granville Street (in the tony Shaughnessy Heights district). This was a single family dwelling at the time (in recent years, it has been converted into condominium units). Langer bought the house from Mr. and Mrs. West, fully furnished. And judging from the value placed on the furniture by West and paid by Langer ($10,000), it wasn’t furnished cheaply (10).
Building Theatres
CVA Bu N332 – Windsor Theatre at 25th Avenue and Main Street ca1927. W J Moore
According to McCallum, during Langer’s second time in Vancouver, he retained his very fruitful business in England. Apparently, among his assets (not necessarily located in the Vancouver area) were “a gravel pit, a cement plant, real estate and mining interests,” his home at 3290 Granville, a black stallion named Salvador that was so impressive that he’d lend it to the City Police for use in parades, and two cars: a Rolls Royce and a maroon Daimler complete with a matching maroon-liveried chauffeur (11).
By 1925-26, despite his later claim that he had intended to “do nothing” in Vancouver, he had built several (cookie-cutter) suburban theatres: the Kerrisdale, the Alma, the Victoria, the Fraser, the Grandview, and the Windsor. These theatres together, briefly, comprised the Langer Circuit. (12) He built the Orpheum in 1927 and leased it to the Orpheum Circuit.
In 1929, on bad advice, Joseph sold his theatre interests to Famous Players Canadian Corporation and invested in a gold mine. Susan Oddy says: “At the time, gold was the standard currency, so when the stock market crashed, the price of gold dropped way down, too.” He returned to England shortly thereafter in financial ruin.
CVA Bu N331 – Kerrisdale Theatre building at 2136 West 41st Avenue] ca1927. W J Moore
Final Years
In 1932, there was a report in the Oakland Tribune that Jennie Langer was filing suit against J. F. Langer for “separate maintenance” of $400/month against him. She said that they had been separated since November, 1931.
In describing her husband’s ability to pay for her support, Mrs. Langer states that Langer owns a $50,000 home in Vancouver, B.C., a $20,000 interest in the Bonanza mine in Amador county, $60,000 worth of stocks and bonds bought during the last year, mining machinery in Canada worth $12,000 and the annual income from England of $100,000. (15)
Langer died in 1948 at age 76 in circumstances that hint at suicide (as far as I know, there was no autopsy). Langer’s body was found beneath the bedroom window which he’d apparently leapt from; it was in the home of his son Basil in England.
Jennie lived until 1954. During her final years alone, her accommodation in Vancouver changed every couple years, evidently slowly declining in quality — from 4911 Blenheim St. (1938) to 1400 W. 8th (1940) to 1465 W 14th (1942) to 1006 W 16th (1943) to apartment living on the east side at #7 – 111 E 26th Ave. (1947) and then back to the west side at 1336 W 13th (1951) and to 4151 Rumble in Burnaby (1954) then to 7042 Bellcara Dr (with her son, Frank) in 1954 and, finally, to the Home for the Aged in Coquitlam, where she died later that same year.
Notes
1. I am indebted to Robert of westendvancouver for contributing to research for this post, and I’m very appreciative for her many memories and family records to Susan Oddy, one of Joseph Langer’s grandaughters (born to Dora Caroline Langer and Gerald Oddy in 1948). I’m also appreciative of the notes and records kept by Ken Royston, great-grandson of Joseph, and those kept by Barbara, grand-daughter of J. F. Langer.
2. There is an odd twist to Langer’s life during this period in B.C. which I haven’t been able to fit into the narrative. The source is a single paragraph in the Omineca Miner (a Hazelton, BC publication) of January 10, 1914. It reads as follows: “J. F. Langer of the B.C. Contracting Co. has returned from a business visit to Vancouver accompanied by Mrs. Langer. They have taken possession of their new residence opposite the Anglican Church. ” There are at least a couple of interesting features in this brief blurb: First, it seems from this that Langer had a home in Hazelton which he shared with “Mrs. Langer” — presumably not Jennie Farley at this very early stage. Second, it strikes me as odd that Langer would be buying a property in Hazleton presumably while owning his Vancouver lot at 1715 Woodland, given his story some years later of being stone broke by the time he left Vancouver in December 1914! (In a follow-up note from Susan Oddy, she notes that Joseph and Henrietta did live in Hazelton for a time. No details were provided, however).
3. Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (JCPC) Joseph Francis Langer v. McTavish Bros. 1931, Record of Proceedings, p.121. This appeal by Langer to the JCPC of a BC court decision in favour of the McTavish Bros. is a treasure trove of testimony in Langer’s own words. The details of the case aren’t particularly germane to this post, but if interested, they can be found in the early pages of the Record of Proceedings.
4. They included: Everett Sash & Door; Cullen builders’ Supplies & Equipment, Clarke Bros. Hardware; Kydd Bros, Hardware; Wright-Cameron (don’t see this firm in the 1913 city directory); Williams & Co. (this might have been the A. R. Williams Machinery Co.; and Northern Electric.
5. JCPC Langer v. McTavish Bros. 1931, Record of Proceedings, p.122. Note: Upon returning to Vancouver in 1923, he made a deal to pay his creditors; this wasn’t for the full amount owed, but for some fraction of that amount.
6. JCPC Langer v. McTavish Bros. 1931, Record of Proceedings, p.123.
7. JCPC Langer v. McTavish Bros. 1931, Record of Proceedings, p.123.
8. Douglas McCallum. Vancouver’s Orpheum: The Life of a Theatre. City of Vancouver, 1984, 9.
9. JCPC Langer v. McTavish Bros. 1931, Record of Proceedings, p.123.
Given that Ron Morrier is best remembered today as the host of All-Star Wrestling, it may be a bit surprising to watch him hosting this 15-minute program. He comes across as a calm, well-spoken, and good-humoured gent.
Joseph Roland DeLorme (“Ron”) Morrier was born in Prince Albert, SK in 1914 to Joseph Eldege Morrier and Marie-Josephine-Emma Gravel. In his youth, he was a soprano singer and a Golden Gloves boxer. At age 14, he went to St. Boniface, MB where he studied at a Jesuit college. Upon finishing there, he re-joined his parents, who had since moved to Montreal. His folks later moved to Edmonton, where Morrier worked in his Dad’s printing shop.
Morrier married Jean Hobson in Edmonton on April 15, 1942 (Edmonton Journal, 16 Apr 1942). *
He got his first radio job in Edmonton. He worked at various radio broadcasting jobs for 26 years. In ca1944, he was a producer with CBC Radio in Winnipeg. From ca1946-1952, he was with new radio station CJAD (800) in Montreal. He did primarily sportscasting there: Blow-by-blow commentary for boxing, play-by-play for football and hockey matches, and Golfing with Ron Morrier. Other radio jobs were in Waltrous, SK and Kingston, Jamaica.
In ca1952-53, Morrier took a brief break from broadcasting, establishing Ron Morrier Radio-Television, a retail sales business.
In 1956, he moved to Vancouver, where he signed on with new radio station CKLG (730), Vancouver’s ‘Good Music’ station. Here, for the first time in his broadcasting career, Morrier wasn’t principally in the role of sportscaster (that job was filled by Al Pollard). He was the morning show man from 8-10a.m. and his show was called — prepare to groan — The Morrier the Merrier.
He worked in Vancouver radio until 1960, when CHAN-TV got its licence and he joined them. With CHAN and later BCTV, Morrier did bingo, travel, and hobby shows, as well as TV auctions and kids’ shows. And, of course, he was the host of All-Star Wrestling.
Oddly, however, his time hosting The Trading Post didn’t receive any local press that I could find. That leads me to conclude that the program wasn’t long-lasting.
There were three things which could not be offered on The Trading Post: clothing, automobiles, and housing. Otherwise, the products on offer seemed to be the same as you’d see advertised in the classified ads in local newspapers. That might explain why The Trading Post didn’t seem to endure: It was duplicating a service offered more efficiently by print media.
Ron Morrier died at 67 in August 1981. He was survived by his wife, Jean, a son, Kit, and a daughter, Michelle.
Notes
Thanks to Robert of westendvancouver.wordpress.com for spotting an error in the original version of this post. I was showing “Jean White” as being Morrier’s wife. This error was one I carried forward from Morrier’s death certificate.
CVA 203-9 – 800 – 804 Main Street (and 208 Union Street) aka the SE corner of Main at Union. 1968.jpg
The commercial and residential building (shown immediately above and below) has been absent from the Vancouver landscape for about 50 years. It (and most of Hogan’s Alley to the south and east of this corner) were demolished to make way for the new (1972) Georgia Viaduct which would come barrelling through at this point on two gigantic concrete slabs. (In case you aren’t aware of what Hogan’s Alley was, see here for a little of history on the neighbourhood.)
When the apartment first was established in 1910, it was known as Bingarra Rooms [1]. The first proprietors were James and Mary Quinn who had come to Canada from Ireland in 1894. It remained the Bingarra until the mid-1940s, at which time it took a more Chinese name: Sun DooRooms.
CVA 203-11: View of the Sun Doo Rooms (the latest name of the apartment) from the rear (on Union Street). 1968.
CVA 216-1.23 – Georgia and Dunsmuir Viaduct concrete ramps running over Main St. (near Union St) looking NE, 1971.
CVA 203-18: 800 block Main Street, 1969. The view from the end of the 800 block Main up to the Sun Doo Rooms/London Drugs shop.
CVA 586-6105 – The view from Union Street rooms in the Sun Doo. You would have looked out at Luck Man Rooms (I think “Black Cat” was an ad for tobacco), on the NE corner of Union and Main Streets and the BC Electric Substation (as it then was) on the NW corner. 1945. Don Coltman.
J. W. Bailey, who bought the Bingarra after James Quinn died in 1922 (or perhaps just prior to his death), relied heavily on print advertisements to get the message out that the apartment was an economical, safe and clean place to live.
Vancouver Sun. 5 July 1921.
In March 1969, the City announced that it would expropriate the land that was home to many blacks and Chinese (and others of various ethnicities), including the land under Sun Doo Rooms. The residents had 4 months to find alternative accommodation.
Notes
The source of the name “Bingarra” could be Irish, Australian, or American. It is the name of a townland in Galway; it is the name of a town in NSW in Australia; and it is the name of a well-known stallion in the early 1900s (owned by William Russell Allen of Massachusetts). Given that the first proprietors, James and Mary Quinn, were from Ireland, I’m betting on the Irish connection. (Many thanks to Robert of WestEndVancouver.wordpress.com for digging up this info.)
Ray Starr Goodwin with a group of First Baptist Church Young People (predominantly women), 1904-05. First Baptist Church (Vancouver) Archives.
According to handwritten information on the back of this photo, it is an image of First Baptist Church young people on an outing to Deep Cove ca1904-05. The only person named is “Ray Starr Goodwin”, but he isn’t identified except with an “x” on the back of the image and the additional description of being a “16-yr-old boy”. Judging from the apparent ages of people in the photo and the location of the “x”, I conclude that Ray is probably the boy reclining at far left.
Ray Goodwin was born in Port Elgin, New Brunswick to Charles Hadenbroeke Goodwin and Sarah Amelia Lusby on April 12, 1888. In 1891, the family moved west to Kaslo, B.C. in the West Kootenays. Charles was one of the earliest settlers in Kaslo and continued to live there with Sarah until her death in 1934 and his in 1935. Mr. and Mrs. Goodwin hailed from the Maritimes. Ray had two elder sisters: Flora and May.
M-1-66 – A Vancouver, Westminster and Yukon Railway Company train crosses New Westminster bridge. July 1904.
In 1905, Ray Goodwin was living and working in Vancouver (thus, explaining his appearance with the FBC folks on their Deep Cove trip). He is shown in the ‘05 city directory as being a stenographer for the V. W. & Y. R. (Vancouver, Westminster and Yukon Railway). He was only with the Railway for that single year, as far as I can tell. It may have been just a summer job. In any case, I assume that he returned to Kaslo to finish high school after that.
Ray trained for a career in dentistry at the North Pacific College of Pharmacy and Dentistry (a private college in Portland, OR). He moved to Vancouver, BC soon after graduating in 1914. Following his examination and a “full pass” by the Royal College of Dental Surgeons of British Columbia, he began to practice in Vancouver in 1915 at 2190 West 4th Ave (near Yew), and resided at 1922 Venables (near Victoria).
In November 1916, Ray married Emma Augusta Brune, an American. They were married at First Baptist Church in Emma’s hometown of Vancouver, WA. They settled in Vancouver, BC. In ca1918, the Goodwins moved into their new residence at 4485 West 7th Avenue (near Sasamat), where they lived for the rest of their lives.
At about the same time as they moved house, Ray gave up membership at FBC Vancouver and became a member at Fairview Baptist (located at 5th Avenue and Arbutus, at the time). Although their home was situated deep in the West Point Grey district, Fairview Baptist was probably the nearest Baptist church to their home at the time; in any case, it was certainly closer than downtown First Baptist.
When I was looking at photos made by Ray in Kaslo, I noticed that there was a “Howard Green” who was identified in a few of them. I concluded, provisionally, that Green was a boyhood friend of Goodwin’s. But as I was looking for more info on exactly who Green was, it dawned on me that the two were more than friends — they were related.
Ray Goodwin was an uncle (by marriage) to Howard Green. Green’s parents were Samuel Green and Flora Goodwin (Ray’s sister). There was only a 7-year difference in their ages, however. Their fathers had similar careers. Both started life in Kaslo as contractors/builders — Charles Goodwin’s as a general contractor, while Samuel Green was attached to the CPR and so designed their depots, and other structures for them; he later became the proprietor of the the Kaslo general store and postmaster for the area).
Samuel Green family of Kaslo, children are Howard (left), Rowland and Edith Ray. RBCA ca1904. Ray Goodwin photo.
Howard Charles Green was a Conservative Member of Parliament from 1935-63, and for some of that time, he was a minister (of External Affairs and of Public Works) in John Diefenbaker’s government.
Howard Green with Lockly McLean (I’m assuming McLean was a friend of Green and/or Goodwin) at Revenue mine near Kaslo. RBCA, ca1920 (I question the date; it seems likely to me to have been made much earlier, around the 1904 period). Ray Goodwin photo.
Ray Goodwin was on the executive of the West Point Grey Conservative Association. In fact, in 1939, he was the 1st Vice-President. Green’s riding at the time – Vancouver South – included WPG. From 1949-63, Green’s riding was Vancouver Quadra which also included Point Grey, where Ray Goodwin lived.
Green did not mention his “Uncle Ray” Goodwin in CVA’s audio interview of Green made in 1985 regarding his early life in Kaslo. He did mention his “Uncle Bob”, Robert F. Green, his Dad’s brother, who had been very active politically (he was the first mayor of Kaslo, went on to serve in Sir Richard McBride’s provincial cabinet, and later served in the federal House of Commons and the Senate).
Emma Goodwin died relatively young at age 59 in 1947. Dr. Ray Goodwin died in 1984 at the ripe old age of 96.
Ray‘s and Emma’s kids were: William Charles (who died in infancy in 1918), Walter H., and Martin B.
CVA 228-633 – “Retaining wall north of 22.” Taken from a retaining wall on what would become the current Granville Bridge, ca 1954. Lee Parry Film Productions. (Image edited somewhat by author.)
I was trolling through CVA’s online photographic holdings this morning when I came across this image. It wasn’t the first time. Once again, I was struck by how much it appeals to me.
The appeal of this northward shot of downtown Granville Street is that it’s an image of the street at the end of an era.
Although neon is in evidence, it would, within very few years, be considered “ugly” and would gradually disappear from the street that was once known as “the great white way”. (If you’re interested in seeing a video of Vancouver neon, there is a pretty good one here (if I do say so myself).
The new bridge would permanently alter traffic (and retail) patterns with Howe and Seymour each becoming one-way streets. And the bridge would invite more automobiles than ever before into the downtown district. That, in turn, would result in the construction of the many parkades still dotting downtown today, as well as a great many service stations (I count 50-some on the 1960 map below).
In short, Granville Street and downtown generally were on the verge of major change at the time the 1954 photo was taken.
PD 2086 – Existing service stations, retail shopping centres and commercial zoning – a basis for regulating location of service stations, ca1960.
This brief post is just to notify my readers that I have stumbled across what may be a hitherto unknown variant of Vancouver’s second coat of arms (1903-1969). For a history of the city’s three coats, see here and here.
Jason at Illustrated Vancouver points out that the second coat of arms was designed by James Jervis Blomfield and that the design was “first made in 1901, adapted in 1903, and presented to the city in 1945 in the form of a memorial plaque.” An image of the 1945 plaque is reproduced below:
Memorial drawing (1945) on white. From Illustrated Vancouver.
Note some of the differences between the Labour Day, 1914 image of the coat and the 1945 drawing:
1914 logger appears to be clean-shaven (versus moustache), is wearing a hat (versus hatless), and the branch is (for the most part) behind him (versus in the crook of his arm and beside him);
1914 fisherman is also clean-shaven (versus moustache), has his coat hood up (versus hat), has a warmer jacket on (versus a rain slicker), and his oar is behind him (versus being beside him and in the crook of his arm). His footwear appears to be more appropriate for a fisherman in the 1945 drawing (rubber boots).
The nets and hatchets also appear to be different.
I can’t read the motto on the scroll beneath the 1914 drawing. However, I don’t imagine it’s different from the 1945 “By Sea and Land We Prosper”. (The motto was changed when the entire coat of arms was overhauled in 1969 to “By Sea, Land, and Air We Prosper”).
CVA 789-16 – Labour Day Parade. 1914.
The 1914 version of Vancouver’s coat of arms was probably unofficial. It may have been painted from memory onto the fabric attached to the float. However, there is another coat of arms that is less legible, but very similar (if not exactly the same) in this other 1914 Labour Day image.
Years ago, I came across this postcard (above) and then a pamphlet (below) touting “Ladybug Tours” offered in Stanley Park.
I got the two pieces years apart, so it was nice to put them together. I showed the postcard at a display of Stanley Park items held at Vancouver Public Library several years ago. Nobody had heard of these tours nor seen the postcard before.
The image from the postcard tells most of the story: a tour wagon was pulled by a vehicle (a tractor?) disguised to resemble a large ladybug and described on the pamphlet as “something different”. Cute! We weren’t always afraid of monster insect infestations in this town.
Ladybug Pamphlet (front cover). Neil Whaley Collection.Ladybug Pamphlet (back cover). Neil Whaley Collection.Ladybug Pamphlet (page 3). Neil Whaley Collection.Ladybug Pamphlet (page 2). Neil Whaley Collection.
Albert Edward “Ab” Portman (1913 Calgary – 2002 Surrey) owned Tally Ho Tours and founded (and presumably owned) Ladybug Tours starting in 1949. Portman ran Ladybug Tours until sometime in 1951 [1].
Verne Christian was the original driver/commentator on Ladybug Tours. Christian (who lived in the Clover Block at 2237 Commercial Dr., just north of Broadway) was a professional driver [2].
The second Ladybug operator was Fred Rexstrew (1952-53). Fred and his wife, Anna, were involved with the Stanley Park Saddle Club in the early 1950s.
There was a slightly mysterious pair with the surnames Crowe and Salisbury who were listed in the 1954-55 city directories as being associated with Ladybug Tours [3].
I love how the pamphlet suggests “Why not enjoy refreshments at the Hamberque while you wait for the return of the Lady Bug.” The Hamberque! What was that? Perhaps the concession at Prospect Point? (I couldn’t find mention in local newspapers for hamberque, hamburque, hambercue, or hamburcue) [4].
The original initial boarding place for the Ladybug was beside the Georgia Auditorium on Georgia Street; the boarding point was later moved to the main entry of the Park. The Ladybug seems to have operated on the ‘Hop On, Hop Off’ principal, which is a selling point on some of today’s city tours.
You paid at the end of the tour “if satisfied”, “so you can’t lose”.
Before and After Bug-Driven Tours in Stanley
The coleopterological mode wasn’t the first way humans were transported around the park. The tally-ho, a horse-drawn carriage, was the main mode of tourist transport from late 1800s until recently.
The Hotel Vancouver ran a tally-ho tour around Stanley Park in the 1890s, at one time driven by dog breeder, Norman D. McConnell (Sun, 28 June 1950), and at another time by Joe Reynolds (Sun, 11 Aug 1845). The Vancouver Transfer Company also ran a large Tally-Ho in the 1890s which included a tour of the Park (Sun, 6 June 1965).
St Pk P326 – A sightseeing horse-drawn vehicle operated by Vancouver Transfer Company in front of the Hollow Tree in Stanley Park. ca1900. (Note: CVA identifies this vehicle as a “car” but there are plainly reins at the front of the carriage.)
In 1905, Steve White, a Victoria liveryman, launched a Vancouver-based tally-ho. His vehicles seated between 25 and 30 people (Sun, 30 Aug 1945). According to the Vancouver Sun, there was a horse-drawn tally-ho company touring visitors around the City and the Park, which was discontinued in the 1930s.
Given the popularity of the Victoria tally-ho, however, the tour company was started anew in July 1947 by Len P. Mason, an ex-Royal Canadian Artillery sergeant who bought the Stanley Park Riding Academy after returning to the city from 3.5 years of service overseas [5]. I am fairly certain that the ‘wagon’ used with Ladybug Tours is the same one originally used with this 1940s incarnation of tally-ho tours.
Ladybug Tours was on the scene from 1949 to 1955.
In 1969, the tally-ho returned to Stanley Park. It was driven by Art Shannon. The tour had been shrunk to 20 minutes with a set fee. It was based at Prospect Point. It tooted in its ad copy: “Just horse and trees. No cars or concrete” (Sun, 23 May 1969).
It isn’t clear what happened to the ’69 tally-ho tours. But since Victoria was eliminating their tally-hos, a Sun correspondent suggested in 1974 that Stanley Park acquire them (Sun, 14 May 1974). This sentiment was repeated in another letter fours years later (Sun, 17 April 1978) and again four years after that.
AAA Horse and Carriage transported visitors around the Park from 1985. Many of AAA’s horses were Shire horses imported from England. It isn’t clear to me whether AAA was the final horse-drawn tour company in the Park, but it seems so.
Horse-drawn tours in Stanley were discontinued in 2019, I believe, due to concerns over the welfare of the horses.
Notes
Ab Portman had his moment of fame when he was buried alive for three hours in December 1955 under tons of gypsum while working as superintendent of Columbia Gypsum Mines in Invermere. Having sunk into the quicksand-like pile of ore, he was able to attract the attention that saved his life by moving the one foot that was free of the ore (Sun, 1 Dec 1955).
Verne Christian had been at the wheel of a Pacific Stages bus at Broadway and Cambie in November 1945 when he ran into a fire engine; he hadn’t heard the siren. His bus was empty, so no passengers were hurt and neither was he, but three firemen were injured in the accident (Sun, 26 Nov 1945). Someone with Christian’s name was selling boats and yachts at Vancouver Marina Centre in West Vancouver in the 1960s.
It is difficult to be certain when Ladybug Tours ceased operating. Online city directories are available only through 1955.
Please comment if you have evidence as to what was the Hamberque!
However, a Province article states that RCAF Sergeant M. Brown applied for permission to establish a tally-ho for park tours. Competition or misprint?
From [Vancouver] Tourist and Shopping Guide: 1951-1952. Angus McIntyre Collection.
Ladybug Tours Float at P.N.E. Parade (early 1960s). CVA movie by Harry Lin Chin at 9’28”.
When John Radford died, the Vancouver Sun hailed him as “dean of Vancouver artists and famous throughout Canada as an architect, water-colorist and art critic”. Today, you would be hard-pressed to find anyone in Vancouver (even in art or local history circles) who would twig at the mention of his name.
John Alfred Radford (1860-1940) was the third child born to Isaiah and Jane Radford in Devonport, England. He was a life-long bachelor.
Radford came to Canada in 1882 on the Polynesian, settling in Port Arthur and later in Toronto and Montreal. In 1888, he collaborated with J.W. and E.C. Hopkins on the design of the Montreal Ice Palace. He freelanced on various other building projects in central Canada. He studied at the Ontario College of Art while he was in Toronto; presumably, he trained as an architect in England.
According to one source, he left Toronto for Vancouver in 1902 (Biographical Dictionary of Architects in Canada: 1800-1950), other sources put this move a bit later: 1911.
VPL 21079. Statue of Pauline Johnson by artist (not accepted). John A Radford (1860-1940). Dominion Photo. 1921.
Radford was invited by the Women’s Canadian Club to submit a memorial for the grave of poetess Pauline Johnson (ignoring Johnson’s explicit wish that her grave not be marked). Although sculpture wasn’t his forte, Radford complied with the invitation. His submission was turned down, however, as his memorial was considered too expensive [1]. Instead, the selection committee chose the James A. Benzie design that is in Stanley Park today.
There are a couple of records of Radford working as an architect on local projects (for example, this one in Chinatown). There is also a report that Radford designed a number of early gas stations in the city (Province, May 17 1960). But most of Radford’s time in Vancouver seems to have been spent painting, sketching, and writing.
During the pre-war years, Radford kept body and soul together by painting cover art for periodicals such as British Columbia Magazine. He was also an illustrator and art critic for Saturday Sunset.
Cover art: John A. Radford.
There is a very brief press report which suggests that during the Great War, he worked in Seattle with a shipbuilding company (Vancouver Sun 17 March 1918). The 1918 Seattle directory shows John A.Radford as “draughtsman”.
One of Radford’s enduring legacies was the promotion of and establishment of the British Columbia Art League. The League was incorporated in 1920 and had as twin principal objectives the founding of an art school in Vancouver and the establishment of an art gallery. The Vancouver School of Decorative and Applied Arts opened in 1925 and the Vancouver Art Gallery opened in 1931. Radford was a founding member of the League.
From about 1927 until the week before his passing in 1940, Radford had a column in the Vancouver Sun. He had considerable scope in his column, covering “art notes” from around the world, to art critiques nearer to home. A favourite target of Radford’s were members of the Group of Seven. About A. Y. Jackson, for example, Radford had this to say: “[Jackson] is one of the notable coterie of artists in the Group of Seven who seem to be painting little better than when they started years ago” (Sun, 10 December 1932).
One Sun columnist described Radford as having the appearance of “an irascible old Moses of art”. His temperament seems to have been aptly captured in that description, too. Following his death, the Province had this to say about him:
River Landscape in Winter (9.5″x14.5″) 1928. J. A. Radford. From a 2020 auction record online.
He was an artist and proud to be one, and his paintings of coast scenery and his frank and often breezy criticism helped give Vancouver folk an appreciation of art.
John Radford’s strength lay in his independence of spirit, his capacity as a draughtsman and his talent for colour. He had been trained as an architect and had a keen eye for balance and proportion. He had an eye for beauty too, and was contemptuous of pictures that were ugly or faulty in composition or draughtsmanship. The members of the Group of Seven came frequently under his lash because of their henpecked trees and dreary landscapes.
John Radford’s independence was his weakness too. It made it difficult for him to work with others. So some of his best efforts came to naught. It made him more of a lone wolf, and so restricted his resources and his range.
He did much for Vancouver, but Vancouver never fully appreciated him either as a critic or as an artist. For that, he never blamed it, though he was wistful about it sometimes. On the whole, he got more satisfaction out of being John Radford, out of his lonely holidays on the Coast fjords and out of his one-man salons [exhibits] and his quiet generosities than he could ever have got out of being lionized.
Province 28 May 1940
Notes
I am pretty sure of my facts, here. However, I have been unable to find the document where I read this information.
Rocky Ridge and Snowdrifts J. A. Radford. Reproduction in Vancouver Sun, 25 May 1937.
CVA 99-4244 – Walter Leek, President of Exhibition Association is shaking the hand of Sun Tan Queen, Iris Palethorpe. Next to Leek is Dr. E. H. Funk, one of the ‘finals’ judges. Next to Palethorpe is Sun Tan King, Henry Lund, shaking the hand of J. K. Matheson, Exhibition manager. Standing to Matheson’s right is Jack Devaney, the other ‘finals’ judge. And at the far right of the photo is Calvin Winter, conductor of the Home Gas Orchestra, some members of which are in the background. Shot at Vancouver Exhibition. Sept. 1 1932. Stuart Thomson photo.
Van. Sun July 7, 1932
In 1932 the Vancouver Sun newspaper teamed up with a number of suburban Famous Players theatres, as well as a few ‘country’ theatres across the interior of B.C. to have a “Sun Tan Contest”. [1]
The ‘contest’ would actually consist of regional events held at the various theatres (in several ‘classes’: Boys and Girls, ages 6 to 10; Boys, 10 to 17; Girls, 10 to 17; Men 17 and up, and Ladies, 17 and up) and also two nights of finals held at the Vancouver Exhibition (now known as the Pacific National Exhibition).
Although there were 5 age classes, greatest attention was given to the two adult classes, from which would be crowned Sun Tan King, Henry Lund (Vancouver), and Sun Tan Queen, Iris Palethorpe (Burnaby).
The sole criterion, initially, for successful contestants was that they had a ‘good’ tan. However the contestant chose to define that was up to him/her.
Crop of CVA 99-4246 – Sun Tan Queen, Iris Palelthorpe, wearing seal fur coat at Vancouver Exhibition. Sept 1 1932. Stuart Thomson photo.
But just as the application deadline was nearing, another criterion was added: “Because of the unusual lack of sunshine this month, it has been decided to include personality as a factor in the contests…” (Sun, 29 July 1932). If the terms for judging suntans were vague, try to imagine those for judging personality!
There were $1000 worth of prizes. It was impossible to be a complete loser, as even those who were not among the bronzed chosen received an unspecified ‘consolation prize’.
The majority of the $1000 was for the Queen. Besides the trophies that the King and Queen received, there were gifts from various corporate sponsors (such as Associated Dairies, Swift Canadian, and Piggly Wiggly). But the most valuable prize was a seal fur coat supplied by New York Fur Company for Queen Iris, valued at $350. Presumably, the fur was intended for wearing when the sun was more often hidden!
Suntanning: A ‘Sea Change’ Begins
Suntanning began in Vancouver in the 1930s as a fad. Until then, there was only the smallest possibility of the sun’s rays getting past the torso-covering swimwear.
The 19-teens. CVA 99-5112 – V.A.S.C. – Vancouver Athletic Swim Club. May 1917, Stuart Thomson.
Late 1930s. CVA 371-836 – The Polar Bear Club about to go for a swim on New Years Day. Jan 1 1939.
But by the 1930s, the notion of swimsuits had changed some. Local swimwear manufacturer, Jantzen for example, was advertising a new feature of women’s swimsuits: deeply cut ‘sun-tan’ backs! We certainly aren’t talking about the skimpy two-piece bikinis of the 1960s, here, but this one-piece novelty let at least some sun reach the human body, thereby making suntanning above the waist a possibility.
To the best of my knowledge, after 1932, there was never another Vancouver Sun Sun-Tan Contest. The reason for the contest being a ‘one-of’ isn’t entirely clear. There was considerable enthusing by Sun writers about how well the event had gone and how probable that it would become an annual affair. To the extent that there can be any single explanation for the contest not being repeated, it may have been due, at least in part, to civic censorship.
Just one year after the tanning contest was held, the Sun published this report:
Policeman on Horse Visits Beaches
Vancouver police have taken literally and seriously the onerous duty thrust upon them by the Parks Board as censors of sun-tan[ning]…on Vancouver’s beaches.
So seriously, in fact, that in their first foray in the bright sunshine at English Bay and Second Beach this morning, they took no chances on foot in the shifting sand but let a horse do the floundering while a couple of dozen young men reclined with rolled-down bathing suits, under the beneficent rays.
There were no arrests, but there may be if the warning is not heeded, the officer told the sun gods as they reluctantly pulled shoulder straps over torsos that were just beginning to show signs that after all the sun can shine in Vancouver if it does not get discouraged.
Vancouver Sun 1 June 1933
Notes
The local theatres where regional contests were held were: Alma, Broadway, Fraser, Grandview, Regent, Kerrisdale, Kitsilano, Victoria, and Windsor (none of these cinemas are still standing and in service for their ’30s purpose). The B.C. interior theatres that participated were: In Kamloops, Capitol; in Vernon, Empress; in Kelowna, Empress; in Penticton, Empress; and in Nelson, Capitol. For a look at a number of the great interior theatres, I highly recommend viewing the film produced by friends, Curtis and Silmara Emde called Out of the Interior.
Maison Henri interior. This looks to me like Maison Henri’s 550 Granville St location. ca 1930s. Importex (Postcard) Co. Leonard Frank photo. Author’s collection.
The Province. 7 November, 1936.
Henri Gautschi’s Vancouver hairdressing business, Maison Henri, lasted for over 35 years. But today the business and its proprietor are generally unknown.
Henri Edward Gautshci (whose surname sounded Italian) was born in 1875 in Paris, France. His father came from Switzerland.
Henri married May Phoebe Philips (born in 1882 in England). Together, they had two kids: Nancy May (1908-2008) and Edward Henri (1913-1999). May died in 1931.
Henri arrived in Vancouver ca1907. In 1908, he opened the first location of Maison Henri hairdressing and perfumery in the 300 block of West Hastings Street.
By the 19-teens, Maison Henri was located on the 600 block of Granville, and they had a hairdressing school across the street (the Henri Maison School of Beauty Culture at 619 Granville would remain there through ca1943; at that time, the hairdressing school was sold, apparently, to Maxine’s “University of Beauty Culture”.) By the late ‘20s, Maison Henri had moved to its final location at 550 Granville.
VPL 15916 Shops on Granville Street – Maison Henri at 550 Granville, ca1940 (flanked by Polar Furs and Betty’s Hats and Gowns). Frank Leonard.
Gautschi was a bit peculiar when it came to his identity. He advertised his business as being run by “Mr. Henri” instead of by “Mr. Gautschi”. Why he chose to be known by his first name instead of his surname isn’t entirely clear.
It could be that he had little confidence in the sophistication of early Vancouverites; that he didn’t think the average resident would be able to cope with the pronunciation of “Gautshci”.
Or perhaps ‘Gautshci’ didn’t sound ‘French’ enough to him. The Maison Henri, after all, advertised itself as “the only Parisian House in Western Canada.”
Province. Apr 8 1909.
Or it could have been that the reason for the first/surname ‘switcheroo’ was related to his banking practices. In 1916, there were a pair of creditors to whom Gautschi owed just over $600. The pair tried to garnishee Gautschi’s Royal Bank account, but the bank would not process the garnishee, as the Royal had nobody with that name with an account. It seems Henri had his account at RBC in the name of ‘Gautschi Henri’ and he signed his cheques by the same name. The court (oddly) upheld Gautschi’s right to have an account in another name and for his assets in that account to be protected! He continued with the name switch in ads at least until 1933.
A Maison Henri ad showing Henri Gautschi’s name switch. Vancouver Sun. 20 May 1933.
Gautschi wound up in the law courts on other occasions. These pertained to him allegedly paying one of his hairdressers less than the provincially-mandated minimum wage. After the case bounced around in appellate courts, he was found, ultimately, to be in the wrong and had to pay the hairdresser the sum of wages she had owing her.
In 1940, Maison Henri opened a branch shop (in addition to the main shop at 550 Granville), in south Granville (2543 Granville; at Broadway). The plan was that the South Granville shop, in addition to offering hairdressing services, would also carry a full line of costume jewelry.
Maison Henri closed its doors in 1944, when Gautschi was 71. He planned to spend much of his time on his Bowen Island property. Henri died in 1951 at the age of 76.
The principal building in which Maison Henri was located for most of its life, 550 Granville, has had some distinguished tenants: In the 1950s and ’60s it was Foncie Pulice’s street photo headquarters; and in the ’80s, it was home to the much-missed Marks and Spencer department store. Today, it is Grand & Toy stationers.
CVA 677-377 – Storefront window of Maison Henri perfumery and hairdresser, 630 Granville Street. 1919.
Barry William Glass was born in North Vancouver in 1933 to William Glass and Winnifred Marr. He went to Britannia High School, where he was a member of the MacMillan Club of Fine Arts. During his years at Britannia, the school staged Gilbert & Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance; he played the sargeant of police. His post-secondary education was at the Vancouver School of Art, from which he graduated in 1958.
He married Audrey Jean Reimer in 1960 and together they had two children: Wendy Lynn and Brenda Janet. (Wendy, sadly, died in 1979 at the age of 19 in an automobile accident). Audrey took a bachelor’s degree from UBC and was a member of the Vancouver Bach Choir and also of her church choir for a number of years.
Glass’s job was Assistant City Planner with the City of Vancouver. His choice of career was a bit peculiar, given his interest in the arts in high school and at VSA. His career choice was probably motivated by a desire to eat regularly.
But his hobby, as a photographer, became a sort of second job. He got his start with his hobby in 1957 during a recital by Jan Peerce held at the Georgia Auditorium. Glass practiced on this occasion what would become his trademark when shooting opera singers; he would use just available light; no flash. He took the photo of Peerce on the sly — without the subject’s permission or awareness.
Glass sent the best of his prints to Peerce in New York City. He responded to Glass with a letter in which the singer invited Glass to look him up next time he was in NYC. Glass did just that and Peerce connected him with Lily Pons, who wanted him to do her photographic portrait in character for what would be her last time playing Lucia in Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor.
Marlene Dietrich, 1960s. Barry Glass.
The first Vancouver International Festival was on at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre in 1958. Glass was at the Vancouver School of Art just across the street from QET. He would skip afternoon classes to take in rehearsals at the theatre. This is Glass speaking for a profile in the Sun:
’Since the Festival was new then and there were all kinds of new faces, one more didn’t seem to matter so I wasn’t thrown out. When I showed people what I had taken at the rehearsals, they all seemed impressed so I decided to show Festival director Nicholas Goldschmidt too. From then on I had no trouble. I got a pass and permission to do what I wanted, provided I wasn’t on the stage when the curtain went up.’
Vancouver Sun 7 January 1966
Joan Sutherland in orange cloak for Norma, 1963. Barry Glass.
Glass’s involvement with the Opera Association (with which he became the official photographer) consumed a great deal of his time. So much so that his wife joined the association in order to see Glass more often. She had a good singing voice and began to get prominent parts in VOA productions. “‘I would like to do this photography full-time . . . but Vancouver isn’t big enough,’” said Glass. (Vancouver Sun, 7 January 1966). (Audrey, who died in 2006, would have a very full career as an opera singer, performing in most opera houses in Canada).
When he saw Joan Sutherland at QET in 1963 in Norma, wearing an orange cloak, Glass knew that a photo of her in the cloak would make a great image for the cover of her forthcoming album. That image by Glass of Sutherland has been re-used many times since it appeared on that album.
Marlene Dietrich was more of a challenge, as she had a strict “no photographs” policy. But he snuck a few shots of her during encores while she was singing in Vancouver, and hoped for the best. She threatened to sue Glass when she learned of his sneaky photos; but she changed her tune when she saw them. Not only did she drop the lawsuit — she personally interceded with Columbia Records to ensure that the photo appeared on the cover of her next album, Dietrich in London (Vancouver Sun, 23 December 1965).
Barry Glass’ life was cut short by a perforated ulcer in 1968 when he was just 34. There is no telling to what heights his photographic portraiture hobby might have taken him had he lived longer.
“Carmen” by VOA. ca 1960. UBC’s School of Library, Archival and Information Studies scan of Gail McCance’s set design photos and drawings. Tom Carter’s Collection. Barry Glass photo.
Crop of CVA 265-70 – Looking NE at the Lions Gate Bridge Signal Station located midspan above the bridge. 1938. David Loughnan
The signal station that serviced Burrard Inlet before the bridge was built was the Prospect Point station (1893-1939); the old signal station was located atop the cliff above the Prospect Point lighthouse.
Lions Gate bridge station (formally known as “First Narrows Signal Station”) was in operation, 1939-1974. Beginning in ’74, Burrard Inlet was served from Park Royal in West Vancouver. It was then referred to as “Vancouver Vessel Management Centre” or “Vancouver Centre”, for short. The Park Royal station had equipment piled “ceiling-high” (Vancouver Sun, 9 Jan 1974).
CVA 260-974 – View from the Lions Gate Bridge of Prospect Point signal station, above the lighthouse and boathouse. 1938 James Crookall.
The purpose of the signal station, was to monitor shipping traffic in and out of the harbour. Signallers were also to keep watch on weather (e.g., wind speed, visibility due to fog) and advise vessels of same. Other tasks (not included in the signaller’s job description, I assume), included assisting rescues of people attempting suicide from the bridge (this was in the period before anti-suicide netting had been installed).
Signallers at the LGB station included: W. J. Mooney, Wilfred “Tug” Wilson, and Danny Parkins.
The 9 o’clock (p.m.) gun located at Brockton Point (Stanley Park) was, for a while, fired by the signaller on duty at LGB station pressing a button; the gun would then fire by remote control.
The Lions Gate Bridge was a provincial responsibility. But the signal station was a federal one (it was run by the National Harbours Commission until the LGB station was closed. The Park Royal station was run by the federal Ministry of Transport).
There was a flush toilet in the LGB signal perch:
The bridge biffy was pointed out by Dr. J. E. Balmer, president of the B.C. Yachting Association and vice-president of the Canadian Yachting Association. “Men in the signal station receive orders when and when not to flush,” said Balmer. He told the Sun he had never visited the signal station, but he believes that flushing directions are determined by wind strength and frequency of shipping traffic under the bridge.
Vancouver Sun, 28 September 1968
The chief signaller had a residence provided by the National Harbours Commission at the south end of the bridge, and just west of it). It was built in 1938 (at which time the former Prospect Point signal station — west of the new residence — was destroyed). I don’t know when the residence was demolished, but I imagine it happened in the mid-70s.
The residence for the LGB Chief Signaler. It was located about 200 feet west of the south end of the bridge. Vancouver Sun. 14 Oct 1938.
How did signallers get to work? This isn’t a fact; more of an educated guess. I figure they walked across the bridge deck, using the ped-way the way any other pedestrian would cross the bridge. When they were beneath the signal station, I’m guessing that they climbed the ladder visible in the first image in this post.
Lion’s Gate Bridge, 1938. Fund-Raiser for Theatre Under the Stars, 1994.
The late 1920s and 1930s was the age of the searchlight in Vancouver.
Port P1153.2 – Mr. E.C. Dawe, Point Atkinson Lighthouse Keeper, with his light. 1951.
Searchlights were not a new thing. They had been in use in 19th century Europe. Indeed, they were not new to Vancouver, either. Searchlight technology was in use in B.C. coastal applications from before Vancouver’s incorporation — as lighthouses.
The popularity of the searchlight during this time was probably due to a number of factors. Improved light technology and the ‘reach’ of searchlights was certainly one.
But it seems to me that the single most important factor behind the popularity of the searchlight at this time was the currency of Art Deco (aka Style Moderne) design.
One of the first things to enter my mind at the mention of searchlights is the very deco-ish visual (and soundtrack) that accompanies movies made by 20th Century Studios. If you need a reminder of what I’m talking about, click on this link.
Woodward’s
Van Sc P114 – The Woodward’s Department Store searchlight atop the tower. ca 1938.
One of the first institutions in Vancouver to make use of a searchlight was a department store — Woodward’s. In 1927, the store installed a searchlight atop its building at Abbott and Hastings.
Puggy [P. A. Woodward] . . . had a giant tower built on the roof of the Store. It stood seventy-five feet high, held a searchlight forty-eight inches in diameter and threw out a two-million candlepower beam which revolved six times each minute and spread its rays far over the Lower Mainland across to Vancouver Island. For many years, the Beacon Tower was a landmark to the people of Vancouver.
The Woodwards: A family story of ventures and traditions. Douglas E. Harker. 1976: Mitchell Press.
The purpose of this light was advertising. Woodward’s searchlight seemed to proclaim, boldly: “Look at Woodward’s searchlight! Isn’t it time you returned here to shop?”
In 1938, in response to an order from the federal Department of Transport, the Woodward’s light was extinguished. It was believed that pilots who were unfamiliar with Vancouver might confuse the Woodward’s searchlight with the airport landing strip. The searchlight was replaced with a giant “W” (Vancouver Sun, 2 June 1938).
The giant W removed from its perch above Woodward’s for condo development. .Arlen Redekop / PNG.
Canadian Diamond Jubilee
Pete Triance, Superintendant, Grouse Resort, with his light. Vancouver Sun. 4 July 1927.
As part of the 1927 Canadian Diamond Jubilee celebration (marking 60 years since Confederation), a searchlight was installed atop Grouse Mountain. The light shone on various parts of the city, including City Hall, from July 1 for a number of days that year. According to the caption beneath the accompanying photo from the Sun, the light was co-owned by the City of Vancouver and other municipalities in the Greater Vancouver area (Sun, 4 July 1927).
This searchlight served a function similar to that of Woodward’s. It was a form of advertising, celebrating a civic occasion.
There was another event associated with the Diamond Jubilee at which a searchlight was involved. On the day of the Jubilee (Dominion Day), there was a fireworks display over English Bay. As part of that, the H.M.C.S. Patrician “added to the entertainment by playing its searchlight over the water.” (Sun, 4 July 1927)
Hudson’s Bay Co. / Vancouver Airport
CVA 99-2493 – Hudson’s Bay Co. / Airport searchlight. 1930. Stuart Thomson.
A searchlight was installed by a major competitor of Woodward’s, Hudson’s Bay Co. on the roof of its store at Georgia and Granville in 1930. In this case, the searchlight was to serve the brand new city airport by shining a light from downtown, over Shaughnessy Heights, and onto the landing strip at the airport on Sea Island. The searchlight on HBC apparently had the same strength as the one on Woodward’s and the one that had been atop Grouse Mountain in 1927 — a two-million candlepower beam. Indeed, it is likely that the light on HBC was the same light as had been on Grouse (Sun, 4 July 1927).
According to local press reports, the searchlight was to be situated 60-feet above the roofline of the department store. But looking at the photo above, I don’t see how that is possible (unless the photo was taken early in the installation and that it was raised significantly higher, later — perhaps after aldermanic and HBC bigwigs had skedaddled).
I don’t know how long the HBC/Airport searchlight was in use. It seems doubtful to me, however, that it would have continued to operate far into the WW2 period, due to wartime blackout precautions in the City.
Searchlights as Metaphors
VPL 80816A Colliers Motors opening of new showroom, 450 West Georgia Street, night photograph with searchlights, 1949. Art Jones.
Searchlights were popular in this period not only as devices, but also as metaphors. A search through the local press from the later ’20s and ’30s reveals that the term was regularly used in church sermon titles and product ads.
Baptist preachers seemed regularly to reach for “searchlights” when crafting sermon titles. Mount Pleasant Baptist, for example, in 1928 had a sermon series on “Russellism [Jehovah’s Witnesses] Under the Searchlight”, and Rev. Elbert Paul of First Baptist, in 1936, delivered a sermon titled — opaquely, in my opinion — “A Searchlight of Selfishness”.
The Province newspaper in 1929 advertised its ‘lost and found’ service in their classified ads section with the headline: “Like High Powered Searchlights”.
CVA 1184-1615 – View of the P.N.E. at night showing the exhibition buildings, rides and a large searchlight, 1960. Jack Lindsay.
A term often used in this period as a synonym for searchlight was “beacon”. The Beacon Theatre (formerly the second Pantages at 20 West Hastings) was so named in 1930. There was also a local publication in the 1930s called “The Beacon”; I gather that this was a religious pub of some sort, since the editor’s name was Rev. Duncan McDougall (it seems he was as a Presbyterian minister).
CVA 99-729 – American Laundry, 1339 Richards Street. ca1918. Stuart Thomson.
The very solid brick structure shown above was at 1339 Richards Street and seems to have been built circa 1914. To my surprise, given Vancouver’s record of demo-ing most buildings that stand for more than 50 years, this structure endured for nearly 100 years and many businesses called it home. [1]
Before the building went up, there was a residence at the address, I’m guessing similar in type and size to the building to the right (north) of the brick building. For some reason (a residential fire?), that building was pushed over and the brick structure went up in its place.
The original owner of the brick building was William James Thomas, a local architect and contractor. [2] Whether Thomas ever owned the American Laundry or if he was strictly the landlord for awhile, isn’t clear. By 1913, however, the American Laundry was identified (accurately or not) as being a “Chinese laundry”.
The operator of the business by 1929 (whether he was the owner, then, isn’t clear) was called Mock Sing. The only reason that we know this much is that the laundry was robbed in November, 1929 and the local papers made a tremendous fuss over the police constable who saved the day and booked the rascal who had threatened Mr. Sing and the P. C.
The robber was Lowell Chinn, a person who was identified only as an American recently arrived in Vancouver. [3]
A little Chinese laundryman named Mock Sing gave [P.C. Denis] Johnston his big opportunity. Mock had been having a hard time of it. On October 2, a bandit entered his shop at 1339 Richards street, pressed a gun against him and took $25. One week later, the same raider again victimized Mock Sing [and this time, presumably, Chinn netted little or nothing for his efforts].
The hold-up occurred at 8p.m. After the bandit rifled the till, he ran to the back of the shop while Mock, heaping Chinese maledictions upon his head, darted into the street. He caught sight of husky Denis Johnston patrolling his beat with measured tread.
“Lobbers ketchum help, bandits!” screamed Mock.
“Be asly, me bhoy,” comforted Denis Johnston. “I’ll get your bandit for ye.” [The P.C. was of Irish extraction, in case that isn’t obvious!]
Vancouver Sun 23 Nov 1929 (comments in square brackets are mine).
Chinn threatened P. C. Johnston with a cigarette case which he wielded as though it were a revolver and shouted to Johnston “Stand where y’are or I’ll drill ya.” The constable it seems to me was full of the blarney, knew how to make a good story better, and added a lot of detail about how he felt when Chinn made his threat (which I’ll spare the reader of this post). Chinn was sentenced for six years for the hold-up at American Laundry ($25), robbery of another Chinese gent (50 cents), and another, earlier, Chinese laundry stick-up on Hornby Street ($15). [4]
By 1930, American Laundry had closed its doors. Thereafter, until 1950, there was a pretty rapid succession of businesses in the brick building at 1339 Richards:
1931, Patent Utilities Manufacturing had taken over the space. It didn’t last long.
1932-34, the address was shown in the Vancouver directory as “vacant”.
1935-36, Granolite Paint had its business there.
1937-38 it had become Electrical Sales & Equipment.
1939-40, Vancouver Stone Repair.
1941-43, H K F Machines.
1944-45, the building housed Aero Manufacturing machine shop and D. V. Manley manufacturers agents.
1946-49, T. Woodward roofing had the building for its business.
From 1950-67, the first long-term occupant of 1339 Richards was also the first in a string of restaurants in the building, Monty’s Spare Ribs. (The original proprietor of Monty’s was Max King; he claimed that Monty’s was named for Monty Montaine, the maitre ‘d at The Cave Supper Club during WWII).
Monty’s was followed by the Original Spare Rib House from ca1967- circa1972. From 1973 until the mid-1980s, Edgar’s Dining Lounge occupied the brick building. And that was followed, evidently, by one of the last occupants I was able to track down: a high-end Italian restaurant called Pappa Al Pomodoro in the mid-90s, briefly, at 1339 Richards (which the Sun’s restaurant reviewer, Mia Stainsby, accurately described as “a charmless section of Richards Street”).
CVA 779-E07.29 – 1339 Richards Street (Sir Edgar’s Dining Lounge; formerly the American Laundry building), west side of Richards. 1981.
By the 2000s, 1339 and the rest of the southern end of Richards Street had succumbed to the trend for densification sweeping all downtown districts, and was redeveloped as condos.
Finally, the little old brick building at 1339 gave way to the wrecker.
As I’ve noted elsewhere in this blog, it seems to me that peripheral parts of the city (e.g., East Vancouver, and the southern extremes of Richards and Seymour) tend to be less likely to quickly demolish buildings. The central (downtown) district seems more likely to “re-develop” its property — ironically, as that is today the most touristy area and the one in which there is greater call now for retention of heritage property.
Notes
This community at the south end of Richards has been, for most of the 20th century, a zoning muddle. In 1914, the year the American Laundry was apparently established, among the homes at the south end of Richards were these businesses: Pioneer Laundry (900), Pioneer Carriage & Shoeing (912), Albion Motor Co. (940), Imperial Art Glass (1059), Riggs & Higgins Sash Manufacturers (1067), Sing Lee Laundry (1068), Star Steam Laundry (1115), Berlin Dye Works (1122), Smith Co. Hardwood Lumber (1320), and Belt Line Transfer (1369). By 1929, when American Laundry was nearing the end of its life as a laundry, a much larger operation would be built a block away — Canadian Linen Supply (1200), known today as Choices grocers.
There was a firm called “American Laundry” with a Canadian base in Toronto. They seem to have manufactured steam laundry machines during this period. It is possible that they also invested in some store-front operations like the one on Richards Street, but I could not find any evidence to confirm that.
I find it interesting, that Chinn’s ‘voice’ — as attributed by the Sun — was stereotypically American gangster-ish! I assume this was done to help the reader keep track of the characters.
The Lowell Chinn convicted of these robberies seems to be the same as the Lowell H. Chinn who turned up in Spokane by 1937. He also had some scrapes with the law in that city. He pleaded guilty in 1941, for instance, to a charge of larceny for passing a bad cheque. In 1949, a second-degree burglary charge against Chinn was apparently dropped upon his being arrested in Cheyenne, Wyoming on another (unknown) charge. By 1958, he was serving time in Utah on a larceny conviction. Chinn died in Seattle in 1986.
Thanks to Robert of WestEndVancouver for his assistance with some of the research for this post.
The germ of this post (if one may use such a word these virus-centric days) came from local music/theatre expert, Tom Carter. He found the correspondence that is at the post’s heart in a Gastown antique shop years ago and then forgot about it. Recently, the letter came to his attention again.
Unlike the typical VAIW post, there isn’t a featured photograph showing Lefebure; there simply wasn’t one that I could find. The letter written by E. S. Lefebure — his ‘voice’ — will stand in lieu.
First, however, a few details about Ted Lefebure and his kin.
Madras, India
Edward “Ted” Stewart Lefebure (1895-1946) was born in Madras (today’s Chennai), India to Edouard and Grace.
Edouard was born, studied and spent his early working life in England. Edouard trained in England to become a locomotive engineer. By the early 1890s, he was living in Madras, presumably working as an engineer on trains in that area.
I don’t know where Edouard met Grace. Like Edouard, she was born in England, but the two were married in Madras in 1892. In 1895, Edward Stewart was born to them in Madras; Ted was their only child.
Saskatchewan
When he was about 7, Ted and his parents moved to England. I assume that the reason for moving from India was Grace’s declining mental health. In 1902, Grace was admitted to the mental hospital in Wells, England. Grace died in that institution in October 1931. [1]
When Ted was about 15 (ca1910), he moved with his Dad to Canada. They settled in the vicinity of Biggar, Saskatchewan where Edouard took up a new occupation, that of a farmer.
In October 1917, Ted married Margaret Huggins (of New York State). Together they had two daughters, Rita and Norma. There is evidence that the couple didn’t live in Saskatchewan for all of their married lives. Rita and Norma were both born in Nepanee, Ontario.
The marriage was not to be long-lasting. In 1923, records show that Margaret moved back to the States, together with their two kids. In 1927, she married Theodore Hamilton in the U.S.
Vancouver
About 1929, Ted moved to Vancouver and he was resident at 530 Hornby Street (Hornby Mansions). A year later, he married Phyllis Irene Arnold (on the certificate of marriage to Phyllis, Ted wasn’t entirely honest; he indicated that he had been a “bachelor” prior). Phyllis had been born in England and was working as a maid at the time of her wedding. Ted and Phyllis moved several times over the early years of their marriage, ultimately settling for most of their marriage at 1320 East 11th Avenue.
According to the 1931 BC Directory, Ted’s occupation at the time was “painter”, presumably a commercial painter. But in the final years of his life, he described his occupation as “musician”.
Ted’s ‘Voice’
What instrument did Ted play? Did he perform solo, or was he part of a band? These and other questions will be addressed at the conclusion of this post.
Before we get to those, however, I want to share a letter written by Ted Lefebure to his Dad in 1933. The letter comes from the collection of Tom Carter. He found it in an antique shop several years ago and recently invited me to take a crack at figuring out who the writer was and what was the context of the letter. It offers interesting insights into Depression Vancouver of the mid-1930s and into the lives of the Lefebures.
1320 – 11 Ave. East Vancouver, B.C.
March 10th, 1933
Dear Father,
I thought I would write a few lines to find out how you are and to let you know we are all well here yet[“all” refers to Ted’s family, I assume: Phyllis, two boys — Phillip and Dennis — and two girls]. We have had quite a hard winter for Vancouver. Had quite a bit of snow and frost, but the weather is improving now and I guess spring will soon be here. I do not suppose you have had any word from Mackinnen’s about the money yet. I have not heard from them for two months now. Well, I’m not fooling around waiting on them any longer. I have turned all my papers and correspondence over to a law firm here to attend to . . . . [He continues on for a couple of pages discussing this apparent family inheritance. Grace died in England in 1930, so it’s my suspicion that this is in reference to Ted’s Mom’s estate].
I am still doing quite a lot of playing, and am busy most every evening somewhere, although the pay is pretty small sometimes. Have great hopes of things being better in the musical line soon. Am getting pretty well known with the professional musicians in the city. Being well known here is half the battle. We are still playing over the air on station C.K.M.O.
The unemployment situation is very serious in Vancouver now. There is rioting almost every week. I have been down amongst them at different times and I think it is disgusting the way the police ride up and down the sidewalks with their horses and trample on people and knock them down with weighted clubs. My sympathy’s with the unemployed people. All they are asking for is a square deal from the rotten government, and they get their heads busted open. Is it any wonder that people are turning red? I’ll soon be a good Bolshevik myself
Well, I guess I had better close for this time. We are still living in hopes of being able to come down and see you sometime in the summer. Hoping you are keeping well. [Edouard would pass away in Edmonton in October 1935; I don’t understand ESL’s reference to his Dad’s location as being “down” relative to Vancouver].
Love from us all,
Ted
Tom Carter’s collection. (Note: I have edited this letter very lightly; mainly editing out Ted’s run-on sentences. Remarks in square brackets are mine).
Nanaimo Daily News. 5 July 1940.
According to the Sun, Ted played the violin. He might have played solo gigs, but I haven’t been able to find any evidence of that. He played with a band, and he was the leader:
Though not a Stadivarius, as violins go, it was a good one.
It once belonged to Ted Lefebure, the “Doc” in Doc’s Old Timers band that played in ballrooms around town in the 1940s.
Doc brought the instrument with him from the prairies in the 1920s. Doc’s son Phil, of Langley, says his dad died in 1946 and his mother, Phyllis, sold the violin to band member, Jack Alexander about 10 years later. [Phyllis died in 1965].
Vancouver Sun. 16 Nov 1993.
“Doc’s Vancouver Old-Timers Band” seems to have been the name of Ted’s band that was most often used. But on at least one occasion (on a gig in Nanaimo), they were known as the “Merry Makers”.
I tried to find photographs which might have included ESL (e.g., CKMO radio orchestras) in various local online archives. But no dice.
There remains for me, one final question: Why “Doc”?
I suspect that the “Doc” sobriquet was to make his surname less of an issue for people to recall. Most local band/orchestra leaders were known by their last names — e.g., Fowler’s Orchestra — and Lefebure doesn’t exactly roll off the Anglo tongue. So I’m guessing that the monosyllabic “Doc” was considered easier for Vancouverites to say and to remember.
Ted died in Vancouver at the young age of 51 in 1946.
Re N2.2 – Unemployed men at Victory Square being dispersed by police. July 1932.
Note
I am indebted to Robert of Westendvancouver.worpress.com for his assistance with some details in this post. He found evidence of Grace’s institutionalization in the Wells mental hospital, as well as other facts.
CVA 2014-089.0604 – Les Guildermeester (I have no idea who LG is or was), Benny Goodman and Hugh Pickett at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre. April 1976.
Benny Goodman (1909-1986) was my musical hero during my high school years. No, those years were not for me the 1930s or 1940s. They were the late 1970s!
Yes, I was and am, perhaps, a bit odd. I was turned on to the musical stylings of the King of Swing some forty years after he made those sounds popular; when he was about a decade from death. But thanks to the magic of LP records, I was able to hear him and his trios, quartets, and other sub-band groups as freshly as when they made those recordings.
Well, I can hear you saying, what has this to do with Vancouver as it was?
I’ve just learned, thanks to the Hugh Pickett fonds at CVA, that Benny and his then-Sextet played Vancouver at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre in April 1976, just shy of his 67th birthday. His sextet on this tour that included Vancouver consisted of:
Vache and Tate were added as soloists and weren’t, technically, members of the Goodman group. This version of the Goodman Sextet had been on a tour of North American locations: Boston, Montreal, Ottawa, Vancouver. Seattle and Portland were next (and last) on the tour schedule.
Province. 10 April 1976.
There is another element that makes the Goodman Sextet worthy of mention in VAIW. According to the Sun, Goodman was the first registered guest to stay in the new Four Seasons Hotel at Georgia and Howe (Sun, 23 April 1976). Apparently, Goodman was arriving in the city the day before the hotel was due to open and that made him “the hotel’s first guest”. Given that the hotel was due to close in January this year, this forgotten tidbit seems worth noting.
Peter Appleyard, the Brit who made Toronto his home, was the principal media spokesperson during the Sextet’s time in Vancouver. It was his voice, rather than Benny’s, that was in local news accounts of the Vancouver session. I think it was Goodman’s preference not to talk a lot with media types. He much preferred to play . . . and I still prefer to listen to the King swing it!
The album cover art adjacent was, as I recall, from one of my favourite Goodman recordings. It was made in 1967 and features such classics as “How ‘ya Gonna Keep ’em Down On The Farm” and “Autumn Leaves”.
This is a pictorial post of crops based on some terrific images made of the Old Hotel Vancouver (1916) by Don Coltman in April 1948.
Judging from the titles given the original images, I take it that these were commissioned by T. Eaton Co. — the corporate caretaker of the property (as well as the adjacent York Hotel and International Cinema) until the giant downtown Eaton’s store occupied the space in 1972 (to be succeeded by Sears and then by Nordstrom’s).
There were at least two major major occupants of the Old HV in its final months: the Citizen’s Rehabilitation Council (which housed veterans of WWII) and the National Employment Service (aka the Unemployment Insurance Commission). There was a UIC “women’s entrance” on Howe and a “men’s entrance” on Granville Street (why two entries were considered necessary, I don’t know). The CRC entry seemed to be the former main entry to the Old HV on Georgia Street.
Crop of CVA 586-7067. The principal entrance to Old HV, looking west on Georgia Street. 1948. Don Coltman.
Crop of CVA 586-7046. Corner of Howe and Georgia of Old HV. 1948. Don Coltman.
Crop of CVA 586-7056. Men’s Entrance to Vancouver’s UIC office — on Granville. (Note tracks for streetcars on Granville). 1948. Don Coltman.
Crop of CVA 586-7010. This seems to have been made in the Old HV’s laundry lane, looking out toward the then-Court House (now the Art Gallery). 1948. Don Coltman.
Crop of CVA 586-7012. This is a view of the Georgia at Granville corner. The building across Granville is the Old Birk’s building. 1948. Don Coltman.
Crop of CVA 586-7028. A similar view to the one immediately above, but looking south on Granville with the Old HV to the right. 1948. Don Coltman.
Crop of CVA 586-7056. View of the Old HV to the right on Granville. The International Cinema is on the left. 1948. Don Coltman.
Crop of CVA 586-7035. Women’s UIC entrance on Howe. 1948. Don Coltman.
Crop of CVA 586-7043. A gent looking out the window of reception area of the York Hotel (by this time, owned by the same people as owned the Old HV — Eaton’s). 1948. Don Coltman.
Crop of CVA 586-7037. A UIC clerk? through window on Howe side of Old HV. 1948. Don Coltman.
Crop of CVA 586-7034. Gents visible through windows on Howe side. 1948. Don Coltman.Crop of CVA 586-7068. Looking east on Georgia through the main entry to Old HV. 1948. Don Coltman.Crop of CVA 586-7063. A gent looking (wistfully?) out of a window on the Georgia side of Old HV. 1948. Don Coltman.
Nine months after the original images were taken on which the above crops were based, the end of January 1949, the wreckers came on site and proceeded to demolish the Old HV.
Crop of Mil P183 – William Fowler’s Orchestra at the 1st Annual Ball of F. Company 6th Regiment, D.C.O.R. at Lester Hall (1205 Granville). Note: The orchestra is in the orchestra gallery at the back of the hall. I’m not sure which of the men is Fowler. Vancouver, B.C. Dec 15 1911. Bullen & Lamb photo.
William Fowler (1875-1936) was the leader of Fowler’s Orchestra from ca1902 to ca1915. He was the eldest son of James Fowler and Jane Youngson. His sole sibling was his younger brother, Peter. The Fowlers came to Vancouver from England in 1891.
The first gig of Fowler’s Orchestra seems to have been the grand opening in 1902 of the Colonial Hotel. The Colonial Hotel still stands today, however these days it is known by a different name: the Yale Hotel (1300 Granville).
In 1907, at age 32, Fowler married Ellen Elizabeth Horsfield (age 21) in Vancouver. Like William, Ellen (1885-1952) had been born in England (although she was a much more recent arrival; she came in 1904). William and Ellen would have one child, Jane.
Fowler’s Orchestra played many Masonic [1] events. I assume this was partly because Masonic lodges were in such abundance and had a substantial membership at the time; also partly because Fowler was a Mason. But I should point out that Fowler didn’t seem to discriminate against other groups. For example, he took on jobs for Roman Catholic groups (e.g. the Knights of Columbus ball, and the opening of St. Augustine’s Roman Catholic Church hall in 1911 in Kitsilano).
Among the many news accounts of the events at which Fowler’s orchestra played, I’ve chosen the one shown below. It is a good example of period language and of the mood and priorities that seemed to prevail in the city prior to WWI.
The second ball of the series given by the Girls’ auxiliary [this seems to have been a group which was fundraising for VGH] in Lester hall last night proved a most delightful affair. The gaily decorated hall presented an almost fairylike scene. The walls and galleries were almost entirely hidden from view by a profusion of delicate paper flowers and blossoms, while from the gold and red draperies festooned from corner to corner overhead, large imitation roses were suspended by fine wire giving them the appearance of having fallen and being caught in mid-air. The hall was comfortably filled for dancing, about 250 guests being present, while the music played by Fowler’s orchestra was excellent. Amongst those present were . . .[a list of what appears to have been most of the ladies present, along with a description of what each was wearing! For example:] . . . Mrs. C. S. Douglas, gowned with white net over satin . . . Mrs. S. S. Taylor, vieux rose satin with handsome steel bugle trimming . . . . [etc.]
The Province. 5 February 1910.
Other groups that Fowler’s orchestra played for included the Sons of Ireland, the Lancashire Old Boys (which typically met in O’Brien’s Hall on Hastings near Homer), Sons of St. George, Sons of England, the Cooks and Waiters of Vancouver (a trade union group), the Jolly Club (!), Musicians Mutual Protective Union (of which Fowler was a life member), and the British Isles Public Schools Association (which seems to have been composed of ‘old boys’ who had attended ‘public schools’ in Britain — what we’d call ‘private schools’ in North America; their wives were welcome at dancing events).
The admission charge (presumably to cover the cost of the orchestra and catering of ‘dainty’ sandwiches) for dances of the sort that Fowler’s Orchestra played during this period tended to be less than $1 per person. There were different rates for different genders: typically at Fowler events it was 50 cents for gents and 25 cents for ladies. I’m not sure why the gender differentiation. Perhaps it was due to there being more guys than gals in the city and the organizers wanting to encourage attendance by ladies so that there would be enough dancing partners to go around.
World. 17 December 1915.
One of the final events that Fowler’s Orchestra played was for the Vancouver General Hospital’s New Year’s reception in 1915. VGH had officially opened in 1906, but the first nurses’ residence wasn’t opened until 1915. Fowler et al set up in the dining room of the nurses’ buildings.
At the end of 1915, it was announced that William Fowler would take on the managerial reigns of the Ross Music Store (334 West Hastings). He didn’t seem to keep this job very long, however; perhaps a single year. After that, it seems, he retired. Despite being a popular early orchestra leader in the city Fowler, it seems, was not well known — at least not by members of the Fourth Estate. In his 1936 obituary, the writer seemed to be at such a loss at what to write about the band leader that he devoted a whole paragraph of the four-paragraph obituary to pointing out that William was the son of James Fowler, who had superintended construction of several CPR Empress steamships.
Little did the citizens of Vancouver then realize that the relatively carefree days that preceded the 1914-18 war would not return. It was inconceivable that the war would claim some 60,000 Canadian lives and that many more would suffer mental and physical disabilities as a consequence.
By 1918 and beyond, the party was definitely over.
Notes
[1] Some of the Masonic groups were known by names that are still recognizable, such as the International Order of Odd Fellows (IOOF), and some that are not, such as the “Sons of Hermann” and “Lodge Merrie England”!
CVA 99-4556 – Earle C. Hill and Hotel Vancouver orchestra in Spanish Grill Sept 20 1933 Stuart Thomson.
Earle Hill (1887-1955) was a noteworthy orchestra leader in Vancouver in the late 19-teens and the ’30s and ’40s.
Earle Channell Hill was born in 1887 to William and Vella in Vanvert, Ohio. He played the violin. He had his first performance opportunity when he was in high school in Ohio, by playing Brahms in a hotel lobby with a string trio he’d assembled. He later played for vaudeville theatre in various Ohio locations and also joined the Cleveland Philharmonic Orchestra.
Earle Hill. Cropped image taken from the cover of sheet music for “Sittin’ Around”. Tom Carter collection.
Shortly after that, a friend of Hill’s who’d left Ohio for Canada, wrote to him, suggesting that he come up to Winnipeg where he could probably find performance work. He took his friend’s suggestion, and he went to Winnipeg in about 1912 where he worked at various small music jobs, but then he heard of an opportunity at the Canadian National Railway’s (CNR’s) Hotel Macdonald (1915- ) in Edmonton. Together with his brother-in-law, Calvin Winter (organ) and Frank Emde (cello) they formed the Macdonald Trio and played the hotel for about three years (1915-18). The three also offered studio classes in violin, cello, and piano as well as “orchestral classes” at the Majestic Theatre building on Jasper Ave. in Edmonton.
In late 1918, Hill was offered the job of leader of the Hotel Vancouver orchestra (succeeding Oscar P. Ziegler — the first VSO conductor — who had recently died). Hill’s music stylings were described in the local press as being “tasteful and dainty.” Hill was even vice-president of Vancouver’s Clef Club — an organization which had as one of its aims to eliminate jazz music (World, 5 June 1920).
He stayed at the Hotel Vancouver for just a couple of years; by July 1920, he was orchestra leader at the Barron Hotel (SE corner, Granville at Nelson). A typical programme at the Barron included selections from Grieg, Verdi, and Beethoven. Pretty longhaired stuff.
1921 saw Hill making a departure, both physically and musically. He returned to Winnipeg where he was employed to succeed E. Joseph Shadwick as the conductor of the “Famous Capitol (Theatre) Symphony Orchestra”, where his group would play for the silent films of the day. By about 1925, the name of the group was changed, at Hill’s suggestion, to the “Famous Capitolians”. The new name had such cache that the management group in charge of Western Canadian Capitol Theatres (Famous Players) changed the names of all of the Western Capitol orchestras to match that of the Winnipeg theatre.
Hill led his Famous Capitolians in Winnipeg until May 1931 when he agreed to lead an orchestral group in the CPR’s Royal Alexandra Hotel in Winnipeg. He was at the Royal Alex for just a matter of months.
In autumn of 1931, Hill accepted a return call to Vancouver. His first job was with the Strand Theatre Orchestra. In 1932, he would lead the Orpheum Theatre Concert Orchestra. And in 1933, he would return to the Hotel Vancouver — this time playing the Spanish Grill (see featured photo above), where his group would provide dance music on Wednesday and Saturday nights (from 9.30 p.m. to 1 a.m.; “No cover charge, $1.50 supper included”!) He seems to have been attached to the Hotel Vancouver until ca1935.
Hill took a 3-year sabbatical from Vancouver starting in about 1936. (1) This period seemed to mark a fundamental change in the kind of music on offer from Hill’s orchestras. He accepted a position as the leader of the band attached to Winnipeg’s branch of the Cave Supper Clubs. It would be known as “Earle Hill and the Cave Men”, and it would not be known for its dainty renderings of Greig!
When he returned to Lotusland at the end of 1938, it was to take on the job as the band leader of Vancouver’s Cave Supper Club (626 Hornby). The Vancouver Cave advertised itself as being “Vancouver’s Newest and Most Novel Cabaret. Gay informal dancing and floor shows of distinction. Dance to Earle Hill’s scintillating rhythm.” With his Vancouver Cave position, he left the ‘dainty music’ of his earlier professional life behind for good.
Hill played the Cave from 1938-44 and then, abruptly, stopped performing. In 1945, he took a job as a department manager at Kelly Piano. That was followed by various other posts with music shops in the city.
In a profile on his life written a few years before his death, he attempted to explain why he quit leading bands in the mid-’40s: “If I put my head in a lion’s mouth and I get an idea that it is thinking of closing its mouth, I take my head out, to make it easier for him. But I still get the urge to put it back again.” (Sun, 9 January 1951)
He resisted the urge, however, and died of heart failure in 1955 at the age of 67.
Earle Hill and His Cave Men at the Winnipeg establishment of the Cave Supper Club. 1937. Source.
Notes
(1) Hill’s first wife, Leona, died in 1934 at the age of 38. He married his second wife, Marion, in 1942.
CVA 99-1276 – Former U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt (left, lifting hat) with Mayor L.D. Taylor (right, hat in hand) walking west on Cordova Street, outside CPR Depot. (Note: The boy who is right up against the coattails of TR reminds me of the newsboys in this image featured in an earlier VAIW post). July 18, 1915. Stuart Thomson photo.
When former U.S. President, Theodore Roosevelt, came to Vancouver on July 18, 1915, he was in town for about half an hour. The Roosevelt party, according to press accounts, consisted of three people: Colonel Teddy Roosevelt, Mrs. Roosevelt (Edith Kermit Roosevelt), and Teddy’s secretary, W. J. McGrath (a Dalhousie University graduate). The group was on the way to Seattle where they would attend the Panama-Pacific Exposition. They had come via Banff, where they spent two days. The Vancouver stop was truly a ‘whistle-stop’; his train had arrived in the city from Banff at 9.25 a.m. and he had to be on his Seattle-bound ship at 10.00.
Although Teddy was in Vancouver scarcely half an hour, he managed to fit into that time an impressive schedule of hat-raising, glad-handing, speech-making, autograph-signing, and motorcading! One could be forgiven for thinking he planned to run for office north of the 49th parallel!
The image above, made by Stuart Thomson, in my judgement is a brilliant piece of camera work. It deserves to be more widely acknowledged as such. The boy approaching Roosevelt and Taylor (from the right foreground) is dressed in a suit which appears to be a match for that worn by TR (how, by the way, were these guys able to tolerate three-piece suits in mid-July — even if they were summer weight?). The boy’s hat is a bit different from TR’s, but it is a junior sized version of an adult hat, not like the soft caps worn by other boys in the image. The boy seems to be captured in the process of raising his hat just as TR is raising his own head gear! And the look of bemusement on TR’s face caught by the camera is classic, brilliant Thomson timing. It would be challenge enough to get this scene right today, much more in 1915. Bravo!
The quote which follows is taken from the Revelstoke Daily News. It is a more succinct recounting of Vancouver happenings than anything that appeared in Vancouver papers regarding TR’s time here (local accounts included far more info — of a picayune sort — than a present-day blog reader would wish to slog through. Trust me).
VANCOUVER, BC, JULY 18 — Ex-President Theodore Roosevelt was welcomed here this morning by about 3,000 citizens. Wearing a summer suit and a big panama hat, the big Bull Moose stepped off the train jauntily when he was greeted with rounds of cheers. He was met at the depot by a large committee of prominent businessmen as well as Mayor Taylor(1) and members of the city council. For a few minutes he was busy handing out autographs and in reply to Col. Worsnop’s (2) greeting said:
“I am proud at the showing that Canada has made in the way of helping Great Britain. Will you see that my regrets are expressed to the soldiers in the city that I could not stay and see them and express my appreciation of Britain’s noble work in the great war [Ahem, umm Teddy, I think you mean Canada’s noble work].”
Passing to the automobile that was in wait for him and which whisked him round the city at 40 miles an hour for 20 minutes — for he had only 25 minutes to stay [some accounts say 35 minutes] — he met a number of Highlanders, whom he saluted….
“Men of this country,” he said, “at the front have fought and died honorably. It is lamentable that they should die but the blood of martyrs is the seed of the church and I say that no national fabric can be built until it is cemented by the blood of those willing to make the sacrifice of their lives for an ideal. Every man will walk with head higher with pride when thinking of the manner in which the Canadian sons have responded to the great call,” a statement which was received with cheers….
Revelstoke Daily News, July 19, 1915 (By Daily News Leased Wire from Vancouver, BC) – Emphasis mine.
This raises a couple of questions in my mind.
First, what was the nature of the 40 mph, 20-minute whiz around Vancouver? Where did Roosevelt’s motorcade go? Well, it seems pretty clear that it didn’t get anywhere near the 100 block of West Hastings, as is implied by information accompanying the final photo below from CVA. A paragraph in the Vancouver Daily World maintains that the motorcade went only to Stanley Park:
A few moments later Colonel Roosevelt was in Alderman Kirk’s car in which, accompanied by Mrs. Roosevelt and the mayor, he took a trip around Stanley Park.
Vancouver Daily World, 19 July 1915
Secondly, why on earth did Roosevelt engage in his loquacious (and to my 21st century mind, insensitive) remarks pertaining to Canada’s contribution to the ongoing Great War? I’m referring to his comment about how “the blood of martyrs is the seed of the church.” (Note: This is a misappropriated quote from early church father, Tertullian. . . a pacifist! This was spotted by my friend, Tim. Thanks, Tim.) Almost as shocking as the fact that he said this is the response of the crowd. . . they cheered?!
This, indeed, was a different time.
Crop of CVA 99-1277 – Teddy Roosevelt speaking to crowd, evidently outside of the CPR Depot. July 18, 1915. Stuart Thomson photo.
CVA 99-1278 – Teddy Roosevelt standing in back seat of car, speaking to crowd in front of CPR Depot. July 18, 1915. Stuart Thomson photo. Classic auto expert, Peter Findlay, has identified the car shown above (with its distinctive windscreen design) as being a 1914 Cadillac. The steering wheel is also distinctive — known as a ‘fat man’ variety.
CVA 1477-652 – “Part of motorcade during Theodore Roosevelt’s visit to Vancouver. August 1914.” This description is the one given by CVA. I don’t think this is accurate for a number of reasons: (1) according to VDW, the 20-minute motorcade of TR went through Stanley Park; (2) early automobile expert, Peter Findlay, in reply to a query from me, maintains that the vehicles shown in this image look more like 1910 than 1915 models; (3) early fashions experts puts the clothing worn by the people in this image at closer to 1910 than 1915. (The autos in this photo are proceeding in a westerly direction down the 100 bock of West Hastings — they are just passing the Ormidale and Fleck Blocks.)
Notes
(1) Members of the committee included the following (according to The Province):
Mayor L. D. Taylor was not included among the wealthy/influential types who composed the Roosevelt welcome committee. So LDT, ever crafty, met TR’s train at Mission, and rode with TR into the City, thereby beating the committee at their own ‘welcome’ game!
(2) Colonel Worsnop had written to TR inviting him to meet with him and his Vancouver Seaforth Highlanders and deliver a speech. TR, however, sent a reply expressing his regret that his brief time in the city would not allow it.
Crop of CVA’s LGN 999 – Night scene showing ‘old’ Pantages on 100 block East Hastings — what would become, in 1952, the Avon Theatre. 191- BCER.
The Avon Theatre was originally known as the Pantages, from its opening with that name as a vaudeville house in 1908 (on south side of East Hastings between Columbia and Main). It was identified less formally as the ‘old Pantages’ with the opening in 1917 of a ‘new’ Pantages (on south side of West Hastings between Carrall and Abbott; demolished 1967). With the opening of the ‘new’ Pantages, the ‘old’ theatre was known variously as the Royal, the State, the Queen, and the State again.
CVA. Avon business card given to Major Matthews.
In 1952, a repertory group under the leadership of Sydney Risk (1908-1985), Everyman Repertory Co., leased the former State Theatre building from landlord Jack Aceman (1910-1989) and it was re-named the Avon Theatre. Risk‘s company, prior to moving into the Avon, was located at 2237 Main Street (Main at 7th). Everyman put on a total of 13 productions until Risk and his group parted company with the Avon in April 1953.
Jack Aceman and Charles Nelson produced 12 plays from June 1953 until they packed it in at the end of 1955. After that, the theatre was no longer known as the Avon. It was, initially, the Fairview Branch 178 Canadian Legion Social Club, which leased the space from Aceman Investments to stand bingo events. In 1956, the Canadian Chinese American Theatres Ltd. took over the old Avon to present mainly Chinese language films.
The Pantages/Queen/State/Avon Theatre was demolished in 2011.
What appears below is a checklist showing the theatrical productions staged by Risk and by Aceman & Nelson. Only shows put on by these appear below.* In most instances, I have shown the name of the play and the playwright(s), the opening date, the director’s name, the headliners (stars); and supporting cast (probably incomplete, in some cases). In the few instances when I’ve had access to a play’s programme, I’ve been able to add staffing information, as well.
(1) “MacBeth” (William Shakespeare): September 29, 1952
MacBeth marked the beginning of the 7th season of Everyman Theatre since it was formed in 1946. Prior to this production, Everyman had been playing at 7th and Main Street
“MacBeth” – Avon Theatre, 1952. Tom Carter Collection.**
(2) “The Importance of Being Earnest” (Oscar Wilde): October 13, 1952
Director/Producer: Sydney Risk
Headliners: Richard Litt, Alma Thery, Ronald Siddons
Supporting cast: James Onley, Ted Babcock, Joanne Walker, Gwen Arntzen, Myra Benson, William Hernon
(3) “The Late Christopher Bean” (Sidney Howard): October 20 1952
Director: Dean Goodman; Producers: Sydney Risk, Dean Goodman
Supporting cast: Juan Root, Georgia Nelson, Jim Onley, Wendy Martin, George Murphy, Stan Jones
(4) Double bill: “Down in the Valley”, a folk opera (Kurt Weill and Arnold Sundgaard); and “A Phoenix Too Frequent”, a 1-act play (Christopher Fry) : November 3, 1952
Supporting cast: Natalie Minunzie, Andrew Snider, James Johnston, Jessie Richardson, John Emerson, Lee Butcher, Tom Wright, Len Haymen
Laurence Wilson (conductor of CBC Orchestra) conducted a 15-member pit orchestra for DITV. A Vancouver News-Herald article pointed out that some of the Avon’s best seats would be sacrificed for the inclusion of the pit orchestra in DITV
(5) “The Play’s the Thing” (Ferenc Molnar): November 17, 1952
Director: Dean Goodman; Co-Producers: Sydney Risk, Dean Goodman
Headliners: Dean Goodman, Doris Sheridan
Supporting cast: Ted Babcock, Stan Jones, Ron MacDonald, Norman Newton, and Juan Root.
(6) “Murder Without Crime” (Lee Thompson): November 26, 1952
(7) “Androcles and the Lion” (George Bernard Shaw): December 10, 1952
Director: John Thorne
Headliners: James Onley, Georgia Nelson
Supporting cast: George Murphy, James Peters, Glyn Jones, Myrna Benson, Russ Crossland, Len Lauk, Andy Snider, Renee Gordon
(8) “Little Women” (Louisa May Alcott): December 26, 1952
Headliner: Doris Buckingham
Supporting cast: Wendy Cox, Arthur Keenan, Angela Wood, Earl Baerg, Ted Babcock, Andrew Snider, Renee Gordon Eleanor Nicholls
(9) “Tobacco Road” (Erskine Caldwell): January 7, 1953
Director: Dorothy Davies.
Cast include: Babs Hitchman, Doug Haskins, Louise DeVick, Ross Mortimer, Ted Babcock, Tamara Dlugo, Douglas Hellier, Jean Robb, James Peters, Russ Crossland, Andrew Snider and George Barnes.
TR was described as “adult entertainment”; no matinee performances.
There were two special matinee productions of “Rumpelstiltskin” on January 10 and 17 (and probably also on the 24th due to the postponement of Tobacco Road because of the associated public relations fracas).
Program cover from Avon Theatre re-staging of Tobacco Road, 1953. Tom Carter Collection.
(10) “Hamlet” (William Shakespeare): January 28, 1953
Director: Dean Goodman.
Headliners: Dean Goodman, Mary Matthews
Supporting cast: George Murphy, James Onley, Dodd Dalsgaard, Ron MacDonald, William Lawson (among a total of 20)
(11) “Light Up the Sky” (Ross Hart): February 11, 1953
Director: Sydney Risk
Headliner: Dorothy Davies
Supporting cast: Babs Hitchman, Andrew Snider, Bruno Gerussi, Cathy Graham, Frank Lambrett-Smith, Ted Babcock, George Barnes, Don McManus, Angela Wood, George Barnes, David Jones, Derek Ralston, Bob Haskins, and Jean Robb
(12) “The Hasty Heart” (John Patrick): March 4, 1953
Director: Dorothy Davies.
Headliners: Bruno Gerussi, Vivien Brooke-Harte
Supporting cast: John Haddy, Harry Mossfield, Doug Haskins, Len Gibson, Alec Denbigh, Guy Palmer
(13) “The Passing the Third Floor Back” (Jerome K. Jerome): March 25, 1953
Director: Dorothy Davies.
Headliner: Bill Buckingham.
Supporting cast: Jessie Richardson, Frank Crowson, Janet Bragg, Alma Thery, Noel Barrie, Ted Babcock, Bruno Gerussi, Jack Ammon, Dorothy Fowler, Vivien Brooke-Harte, Myra Benson
(14) Re-opening of “Tobacco Road” (Erskine Caldwell): April 11, 1953
Director: Dorothy Davies
Cast: Ted Babcock, Doug Haskins, Georgia Nelson, Babs Hitchman, Eleanor Nicholls, Doug Hellier, John Leslie, Cathryn Graham, Jean Robb, George Barnes, Jack Ammon
Company Manager: Bruno Gerussi; Stage Manager: Dave Jones; Stage Designer: Gary Ness
Program from Avon Theatre re-staging of Tobacco Road, 1953. Tom Carter Collection.
(15) “The Drunkard” — a musical comedy (Timothy Shay Arthur): June 13, 1953
This had earlier been playing at the Cave Supper Club with same cast: John Watson, Cora O’Day, Dorothy London, Alice Hulet, Elmer Cleve, Maryline Cleve.
ALSO on Avon’s Stage were to be 10 vaudeville acts that would include singing, dancing, musical and comedy routines
(16) “Of Mice and Men” (John Steinbeck): October 5, 1953.
Supporting cast: Bruno Gerussi, Lorraine McAllister, Juan Root, Bill Buckingham, Walter Marsh, Barry Cramer, Stan Jones, Jack Coalston, William Tunstall
(17) “Mr Roberts” (Thomas Heggen): November 30, 1953
Supporting cast: Verlie Cooter, Art Keenan, Margot Conine, Eleanor Collins, Wally Marsh, Otto Lowy, Tom Shorthouse, Howard Fair, Eve Newitt, Les Wagar, Bob Woodward, Sam Allman, Nancy Graham, Alma Thery, Rosemary Deveson, Andy Snider, William Gordon, John Maunsell
Stage Manager: Les Wagar; Lighting: Tommy Lea; Assistant Lighting: Andy Snider; Properties: Margot Conine; House Manager: Tom Buchanan; Sets: Sydney Risk
(19) Jan 25 1954 “Moon is Blue” (Hugh Herbert): January 25, 1954
Supporting cast: Lillian Carlson, Doris Buckingham, John MacDonald, Barry Cramer, Derek Ralston, Bruno Gerussi, Hilda Browne, Bobby Johnston, Bud Slater, Rosemary Deveson, Andy Snider, Art Keenan
Stage Manager/Sets: Andy Snider; Lights: Tommy Lea; Sound: Bruno Gerussi; Costumes/Props: Margot Conine
(22) “Country Girl” ((Clifford Odets): April 2, 1954
Supporting cast: Barney Potts, Lorraine McAllister, Wally Marsh, Margot Conine, Les Butcher, Barry Cramer, Bob Reed, Rosemary Deveson, Sam Rosen, Andy Snider, Kitt Copping, Jean Duguid, Joy Lowe, Madelain Matthews, Shirley McCowley
Stage Manager/Sets: Andy Snider; Properties/Costumes: Margot Conine; Lighting: Tommy Lea; Sound/Prompter: Barry Cramer; House Manager: Tommy Buchanan
*For example, the plays of the B.C. theatrical festival, which was often held at the Avon in February, are not included. Also, “Rumpelstiltskin” — which was a kids-only play that played two or three matinees is not counted separately (although it is mentioned along with “Tobacco Road” above).
**Thanks to Tom Carter for the idea for this post conveyed at a recent coffee meeting and for offering the scans shown above (with the exception of the first and last photos, which came from CVA).
Crop of CVA 790-2339 – Sun Sing Theatre (Chinese language theatre, as the old pantages ended by ca 1984). The building was finally demolished in 2011. 1985?
Arctic Club interior. Phone booths, coat check, staff and members, n.d. The man standing nearest to the camera appears to be Robert White (a bartender at the Arctic Club for several years who was a victim of murder in 1959); Ken Stauffer is the other man standing, farther from the camera. Tom Carter Collection.
The Arctic Club was one of several cocktail and supper clubs in Vancouver in the ’30s, 40s, and ’50s (including the Quadra, the World, and Jean Fuller’s). According to recollections of the Arctic Club at the Vancouver Jazz Forum, it was a “suit and tie” joint where you needed to display a purchased membership card and sign in before entering. It was located at 718 W. Pender (south side of Pender, between Granville and Howe). (1)
In October 1934, notice was given in the local press that the Arctic Club, Ltd. would be applying for a provincial liquor license. The Club was co-owned by Bob Mitten, Sr. (1881-1956) and Ken Stauffer (1910-1978); Stauffer and Mitten both came to Vancouver from Saskatchewan — Mitten in 1929 and Stauffer in 1932. By 1935, Mitten and Stauffer established the Arctic Club. I suspect that the two men met while working for the Liberal Party in Vancouver, as both were active in the party (Mitten Sr. would marry Euphemia Stauffer thereby becoming Ken’s brother-in-law). In his obituary, Mitten is described as an “active campaigner” for the party and Stauffer was the Vancouver party president for awhile (Sun, 6 Nov 1948).
Mitten Sr. retired as a Club owner in 1943 due to ill health and his son, Bob Mitten Jr., ultimately took over his Dad’s share of the business. In 1959, Stauffer and Mitten Jr. bought The Cave supper club (626 Hornby) together from Isy Walters, and ran both night spots for a few years. Bob Mitten, Jr. died while in Hawaii in 1971. Stauffer ultimately sold The Cave to auto dealer, Stan Grozina (1937-2014) in 1973. (2) Grozina was the last Cave owner; it was demolished in 1981.
The alley view of the post-fire Arctic Club and Leonard’s Cafe. 1961. This photo was downloaded some years ago (by Tom Carter) from the “Nostalgic and Sentimental Vancouver” group on Facebook. The photo was supplied at that site by Ken Stauffer’s daughter-in-law, Barbara? Stauffer.
In December 1961, fire destroyed the Arctic Club, which took up the top floor of two buildings (together with a Leonard’s Coffee outlet and the Arctic Barber Shop, which were at street level). In the Club, 40 jobs were lost. Stauffer speculated shortly after the blaze that the Arctic might be rebuilt, possibly on the same site. But that didn’t happen. (3)
A napkin from the Arctic Club. n.d. Tom Carter Collection.
Odds and Ends
When the Arctic Club first opened, it had a reputation as a gambling joint with a major poker game. The Arctic Club’s gaming associations seem to have been exclusively during the 1930s (Sun, 19 Mar 1947).
Robert White, a bartender at the Arctic, was murdered in his West End apartment in 1959. A Romanian sailor was later extradited from Hawaii and charged with White’s murder. He was found guilty of the reduced charged of manslaughter; he served just a few months of his 3-year sentence in B.C. and then was deported to West Germany (Montreal Gazette, 17 Sept 1959). White appears to be included in the photo featured above, standing next to Ken Stauffer.
Legendary local jazz pianist Chris Gage (1927-1964) was a fixture at the Arctic Club after his first night there in 1957. By 1959 he was being described in the local press as “the Arctic Club’s pianist”. I believe he continued in that capacity until the 1961 fire. The Arctic Club had a reputation for being supportive of all sorts of local music talent.
Australian, Rolf Harris, had one of his first major gigs at the Arctic Club in 1961. And a “live” LP recording was made of “Rolf Harris at the Arctic Club” (possibly a year or two later). Following Stauffer’s passing, this quote was attributed to Harris: “Kenny’s death is a big loss. . . I owe virtually everything to him” (Victoria Times-Colonist, 11 Dec 1978).
____________________________________
Notes
(1) The Arctic Club on Pender Street was not the first club of that name; another club, the full name of which was the Arctic Brotherhood Club, was often referred to in abbreviated form as “the Arctic Club”. The Brotherhood met in the offices of senior members of the club, until taking rooms near the corner of Main and Broadway (World, 20 Jun 1908). One of the principal requirements of membership in Vancouver’s Arctic Club was that you had resided north of the 54th parallel for at least a year. Whether the Arctic Brotherhood Club had any substantive connection to the Arctic Club on Pender Street remains an open question. However, to me that appears doubtful.
(2) In 1963, Stauffer branched out beyond The Cave by purchasing the Cock ‘n Bull restaurant on West Broadway (today, adjacent to Jordan’s). He renamed the restaurant The Lulu Belle (a gay-nineties-themed family spot) and in 1975 changed the name to Clementine’s, transforming it into a discotheque for the younger set. When the Lulu Belle opened, Stauffer took at least two of his former Arctic Club staff with him: Bert Williams (manager) and Samuel Mee (food services) (Province, 16 Jan 1963).
Postcard advertising the Lulu Belle at 1424 West Broadway. Pat Trudell appears above on the piano. MDM Collection.
(3) In 1947, Mitten Sr. reportedly bought the the Arctic Club property for $50,000, however by the time of the ’61 fire, the Club property was owned by F. A. Menzies, who was also a part-owner of Leonard’s Cafe.
I’m indebted to Tom Carter for making much of his Arctic Club ephemera available for reproduction in this post.
Crop of CVA 800-0843. Food vendor on Granville Street, just south of Commodore Lanes. I am guessing this was taken sometime between 1975-85. Al Ingram photo.
CVA 1184-753 – Woman and small child at a street vendor’s popcorn cart. Probably taken in or near Stanley Park. 1943. Jack Lindsay.Crop of CVA 7-152 – Street vendor’s bicycle (tricycle?) cart, vending lemon sodas and Almond’s ice cream. Dunsmuir Street, looking east towards the Drill Hall on Beatty Street. ca1914. J L Quiney.Still showing a really goofy Expo ’86 Hot Dog Stand made from video produced by Yaletown Productions (CVA).CVA 586-1339 – Appears to be a Stanley Park concession stand with girls participating in a Canadian Youth Hostel bike hike. I have deliberately not included most images of concession stands (excluding, primarily, PNE concessions), but this Stanley Park concession is just too iconic to leave out. 1943. Don Coltman.CVA 99-4559 – Woman using pineapple juice vending machine at the Hudson’s Bay store. This photo isn’t, strictly speaking, of a traditional food vendor, but I couldn’t resist including it, as it represented a technology shift and it is simply such a cool image.1933. Stuart Thomson.My all-time favourite food vending image. Woman with umbrella walking dogs past popcorn stand. Made along English Bay during the Sea Festival. July 20, 1967. English Bay. (230 of 245, CBC/Franz Lindner)
VPL 27452 Waitresses-stewardesses at the Sky Diner Cafe 1947 Province photo.
This image is one of several available online at VPL showing Clancy’s Sky Diner Cafe. This unusual cafe took clever advantage of the long, narrow interior space to create the impression of a DC-3 aircraft fuselage. The Sky Diner seems to have been established in the late 1940s and continued to be in business at 776 Granville (near the former Birks building and the Vancouver Block) until, I believe, the 1960s. The Sky Diner was part of a local restaurant food chain which included the various White Lunch establishments.
The following charming vignette about the Sky Diner was offered by Harvie Davidson, in response to a very detailed and helpful history of local eateries written by Mia Stainsby for the Vancouver Sun: “[The Sky Diner] had the tail section of a commercial sized aircraft jutting out from the restaurant and partially protruding over the sidewalk. Inside along the walls, moving scenery passed by rectangular portholes.” I take it that the ‘rectangular portholes’ mentioned by Mr. Davidson are those that appear along the two long walls in the image above.
Remarkably, given the atypical neon signage attached to the structure, there are no exterior images available (at least, none that I could find), solely of the Sky Diner. However, there are some Foncie photos of various Vancouver residents and visitors, collected courtesy of the Knowledge Network, which show the Sky Diner sign in profile, in the background. Here is one:
I’ve noticed recently that Clancy’s was one of a few restaurants at that location. A 1940 photo taken by Joe Iaci of Kandid Kamera Snaps (Foncie’s first employer, made after Foncie had left the firm), shows in the background a neon sign for Chanticleer Lunch with a rooster mounted over the name. A 1946 image (a Foncie/Iaci-like photo but unattributed to them or anyone else) shows in the background the old Chanticleer rooster sign, but the name beneath had been changed to Rooster Lunch. There are no interior shots of which I’m aware showing the interior of the cafe under its Chanticleer/Rooster management, but it seems safe to assume that the decor was not of an aircraft, nor very likely of a barnyard! (“Chanticleer”, by the way, apparently is a reference to a male vocal ensemble, such as the U.K. group, The Kings Singers, or this group. It is also – probably more pertinently – a literary reference to a rooster who appears in the fables of Reynard the Fox).
VPL 21401. Stores on Granville Street. 1923. Dominion Photo. (Note: Chanticleer Lunch, as it then was, appears to have been on far right of the image).
There was another Clancy’s eatery, the “Clancy’s Downtown Restaurant” – from at least 1955-65 – located in the Roger’s Building, adjacent to O. B. Allan Jewellers. See below:
CVA 1385-3 – [O.B. Allan store, corner of Granville and Pender Streets]. The sign for Clancy’s Downtown Restaurant is adjacent to the Jewellers and seems to be pointing down the stairs which led (and lead) downstairs to the basement. 1965 or earlier.
CVA 99-1170.1 – Seaforth Highlanders returning to Vancouver from WW1. The gents in the automobile appear to be Lt-Gov. Ballard and General Leckie. In this image, the camera seems to be pointing northeast. 1919. Stuart Thomson photo.
The photos above and below are identified by the City of Vancouver Archives as being a “large crowd gathered around automobile, men in military uniforms” and the date shown for the photos is “ca1915.”
I had doubts about the attributed date when I saw the Great Northern Freight warehouse in the scene. Vancouver’s Union Depot, of which the GNR Freight Warehouse was part, was not completed until June 1917. The site of the photo is confirmed in the first photo with the presence of the Ivanhoe Hotel: the crowd clearly is gathered on what would be known within a couple of years as Thornton Park (the green space that is in front of what today is known as Pacific Central Station (originally the Canadian Northern Railway depot, which was adjacent and south of Union Depot; Union Depot was demolished in 1965).
I was able to pin down the date the photos were made a little more accurately by consulting local newspapers. An article describing the event appeared in the June 20, 1919 edition of the Daily World, reporting that “an immense crowd” gathered at Union Depot to welcome Seaforth Highlanders (aka, “Kilties”) who had rolled into the city after serving in the Great War:
And such a rush there was when the gates were opened! Such a hurrying in search of the son, the father, the brother or the lover! Everywhere were anxious, eager, expectant faces, searching, searching, searching for the face and the form they knew was there. Glad cries, little screams of joy, even tears of keenest pleasure were heard and seen on every hand. The scene was a most affecting one, and even the most unemotional could not help but be affected.
CVA 99-1170.2 – Seaforth Highlanders returning to Vancouver from WW1. The gents in the automobile appear to be Lt-Gov. Ballard and General Leckie. The camera, in this case, seems to be pointing northward. 1919. Stuart Thomson photo.
CVA Trans P52 – Men on bicycle training machines: Harry Hooper, Mr. Burke, and another young fellow. (Note: Hooper is in the front seat of the two-seater; I’m assuming Burke is behind Hooper and that the un-named dude is on the solitary cycle). 1901. Richard Henry Trueman photo.
This seemed like an apt image to post in this season of broken fitness resolutions. The image was made, according to the City of Vancouver Archives, about 120 years ago. My two questions, regarding the photo: (1) Where was it taken? and (2) Who were the guys who were featured in it?
I’m pretty sure that this was taken at Brockton Point. It looks to me as though there was a platform behind the bikes — perhaps intended for an orchestra to gather upon. The floor on which the bikes are situated looks like a dance floor to me; the area to the left of the two-person bicycle looks like a dining room. I found a 1902 Province article pertaining to upgrades to clubhouses of the Brockton Point Athletic Association – including “repairs to the bicycle club training room” (Province, 29 Apr 1902). I concluded from this that the photo was made at the Bicycle Clubhouse of the Brockton Point Athletic Association.
CVA SGN 983 – Men with bicycles assembled on front steps of Brockton Point clubhouse, 1897? William M. Stark photo.
The rightmost cyclist I haven’t been able to identify.
Harry Hooper (who is in the front seat of the two-seater) was a pioneer taxicab driver in the early 19-teens (Frank H. Ellis, “Pioneer Flying in British Columbia”, BC Historical Quarterly, Oct 1939, p. 248). There is an entertaining tale in this article (recounted in a footnote on this page) of how Hooper transported an airplane to Bellingham from Vancouver in 1914 using his “big Winton touring car”.
CVA 84-4 – A Winton car belonging to the Stirtons. Presumably this auto resembled Harry Hooper’s vehicle. 1910-12.
It is unlikely that Hooper was plying the taxicab trade at the time the bike photo was made, however. In Major Matthews’ Early Vancouver Hooper notes that he “learned to drive in 1904 with Dr. Riggs’ two-cylinder Ford” (Early Vancouver, Vol IV, p. 215).
The other fellow on Hooper’s bike, Burke, might be Stanley Burke. He went on to become manager of Pemberton & Son Realtors in the city.
Park P4 – View of buildings, rides and amusements at “Happy Land” (PNE midway) – with the Shoot the Chutes ride in the foreground – at Hastings Park. 193-. Leonard J. Frank photo.
The “Shoot the Chutes” ride at the Hastings Park midway from 1925 through 1957 was among the most popular rides. It had wooden boats into which passengers would climb. The boats would then be released, one at a time, from the top of an incline and, taking advantage of gravity, hurtle down the incline and into a basin of water with a great splash. The chute doesn’t seem to my present-day eyes to have had much of an incline, but judging from accounts at the time, it was plenty exciting!
CVA 260-499 – Shoot the Chutes ride at the PNE midway (Happy Land) at Hastings Park. ca1936. James Crookall photo.
The notion of shooting the chutes didn’t originate with the PNE ride. It seems to have come from the logging industry as a way of moving logs into the water, where they could be stored and towed.
Mi P8 – Logs on chute at Hastings Sawmill. Charles Macmunn. 1888.
Shooting the chute(s) for recreational purposes locally was advanced at English Bay with a slide that took children down to the bay (with or without the aid of a device to ride on — although, judging from photos, it appears that kids mostly slid down on their rear ends).* This was installed in about 1905. It seems to have continued in some form at least as late as the 1960s (Sun 15 July 1960).
There was a proposal for another water-oriented chute-shooter ride that was to be installed at Deadman’s Island as part of the ‘Coney Island’-type amusement park that was rumoured to be under consideration there in 1909. The park and ride were both ultimately non-starters, however.
Shooting the chute even became, for a short time, a way of referring to what today we would call sliding down a playground slide. This reference quickly fell into disuse, however.
Be P1.1 – English Bay Beach showing the Shoot the Chute. ca1900. Edwards Bros.
CVA 1184-88 – Less than happy times at Hastings Park: Vehicles, confiscated from Japanese nationals. Shoot the Chutes looms in the background. March 1942 Jack Lindsay
In 1957, the decision was made to move the midway to a new location within Hastings Park (the current location of Play Land). As part of that move, the Shoot the Chutes ride was demolished.
Bu P536.1 – Demolition of the Shoot The Chutes ride in Happy Land at Hastings Park. 1957.
Bu P536.2 – Demolition of the Shoot The Chutes ride in Happy Land at Hastings Park. 1957.
Apparently, there was at least one later Shoot the Chutes-style ride at Hastings Park, however. In 1990, mention was made in the press of a Wildwassbahn flume ride being a modern incarnation of Shoot the Chutes. It was installed for a sum of $1.4 million. It seems fair to say that that is substantially more than was spent on the original ride (Province 17 Aug 1990).
Note
*However, it should be noted that the Shoot the Chutes slide at English Bay was sometimes referred to as a toboggan slide. Thanks to Neil Whaley for this piece of the puzzle. He is my go-to-guy for all things pertaining to old English Bay! (The photo below seems to me to better illustrate a toboggan slide than does the English Bay contraption!)
CVA 99-2076 – First snow scenes on Grouse Mountain, taken for the Star. 1929. Stuart Thomson photo.
CVA 99-3424 – The leftmost building is the Lodge Cafe (556 Seymour), on which are birds that I take to be bluebirds. A residence which, by this time, had been converted into commercial space (574 Seymour) is next door. Rexmere Rooms is two doors south of the Cafe (at 568 Seymour). The 3-storey Arts & Crafts Bldg (576 Seymour) is the rightmost structure in this photo; the A&C Bldg was later built up to its current height of 5 stories (ca1928). ca 1922. Stuart Thomson photo.
The Lodge Cafe was an eatery and dancing establishment from May 1919-1924. The original proprietors were Mr. M. B. Fleming and Fred A. Bush. Not much is known by me about these two, except that they were new to the city (and possibly to B.C.). 556 Seymour was occupied earlier by McIntyre’s Cafe (1911-1916); this well-known establishment (proprietors, James A. McIntyre and Herbert M. Rose) was located at 439 Granville before it moved to 556 Seymour, and was afterwards at 720 Pender.
Before it was opened as The Lodge Cafe, the interior was decorated by Southwell & Aiken at a cost of about $9,000:
The whole interior will be beautified with a series of floral and mural and decorative panels, a number of which will comprise well-known local scenes artistically executed. Over 700 yards of fine carpet have already been contracted for and in addition there will be a special, hard, maple polished dancing floor of 30 square feet laid near the orchestra stand for dancing purposes. The new proprietors will…cater to high class trade only.
BC Record Apr 11 1919
VPL 20676. Exterior of the Lodge Cafe. The building to the north of it (left) would become home to Clarke & Stuart Stationers in 1920; C&S purchased the property for $100,000 from the owner of the Virginia Hotel. May 1919. Dominion Photo.
CVA 99-5283 – Interior of the Lodge Cafe (a Victory Loan Lunch, shortly after the Lodge opened). 1919. Stuart Thomson photo. (Note: This luncheon event didn’t have the need of the dance floor, but presumably it was located near the rear of this image back where the band was situated).VPL 20674. Interior of the Lodge Cafe. May 1919. Dominion Photo. Note the pre-fire murals.
There was a good dance floor at the Lodge. Calvin Winters and his Novelty Jazz Orchestra played there from the opening of the Cafe in 1919 for an indeterminate period. The Lodge introduced four other entertainers to its regular roster by September 1919. In addition to “the Orchestra” (presumably Cal Winters’), there were Harry Belting, Bob Manning, Shirley White, and Neva Latham. Except for Shirley White and Harry Belting (White was apparently a vocalist and Belting a pianist/accompanist), just who these people were is a mystery to me. White went on to be an opening songstress at the Columbia Theatre, after the Lodge closed; White would sing prior to the showing of a film.
In the Victory Loan lunch photo above, there is on one of the pillars these words: “Shimmying Strictly Prohibited”. This sign was directed at dancers. The shimmy had become popular in about 1919 and consisted of dancers shaking their upper torsos (to put it politely). Madame Sonia Serova had this to say about the dance: “It was never a popular dance, if it may be called such….Instead of the ball room it belongs rightfully to the bedroom.” As it turned out, the shimmy was not to die so quickly as forecast. It continues to be a move still used today in modified form.
In February 1921, a fire broke out at the Lodge Cafe (Province 15 Feb 1921). Apparently the blaze began at about 2:30 a.m. in the basement (below the dining room), long after guests and workers had vacated the premises. The cause of the fire was unknown. The worst of the damage was in the kitchen and in the “musicians’ balcony” (although that is how the balcony was referred to in the Province, I have never seen any photos of the interior which shows anyone, musicians or otherwise, in the balcony).
After the fire, the Cafe was closed for about a month. In March 1921, the Lodge was reopened following a complete redesign of the interior. The design work was done by James J. Osborne, assisted by Mr. H. H. Meeker, of the Merchants’ Display Service, located at Cordova near Cambie Street. This re-do included a “beautiful new wall mural design” (Sun March 21 1921). The account in the press as to the nature of the wall mural was vague. But according to it, the ceiling consisted of a painted representation of a summer sky of white clouds with blue peeping through. High above, evidently, bluebirds were discernible, soaring and swirling. By 1921, Francesco Maracci’s Bluebird Orchestra had taken over as the resident dance band at the Lodge.
By September 1922, the Lodge had a new owner. Mr. A. I. Harvie had purchased the Lodge and he wanted it to have a new look and taste. This included a dance floor that had been doubled in area and a new chef — namely, Monsieur Rioual –formerly of the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco.
CVA 778-403: The site (if not the building) of the Lodge Cafe and the earlier McIntyre’s Cafe. The site was the flagship of A&B Sound until it went belly-up in 2008. 1974. (These days, the Lodge Cafe site is occupied by a nightclub at a slightly different address, 560 Seymour).
Despite Mr. Harvie’s efforts, the Lodge Cafe evidently folded in 1924. The site went on to house the flagship store of A&B Sound from ca1970 until it folded in 2008. Most recently, it has been a nightclub.
I love this stiff cardboard window ad concept. Note that “Weather Probs.” is probably an abbreviation of “Probabilists” (see comment below from J. Jones). GP’s fox terrier mascot, “Perky” (aka “Tootsy”), puts in a cameo! The ad is likely from the 1950s. MDM Collection.
Gutta Percha and Rubber Ltd. was a Toronto-based company with regional offices across Canada, including in Vancouver. During the early 1900s (when the Vancouver office was established) the Pacific Division was at 100 W. Hastings Street, where Prado Coffee is today; later the office was in the 500 block of Beatty, just a couple of doors south of the Sun Building.
CVA 99-3450 – Gutta Percha & Rubber Ltd. at 526 Beatty Street. ca 1924. Stuart Thomson photo.
GP was founded in 1883 by H. D. Warren in Toronto. The company endured until 1960 when it went into voluntary liquidation. It struggled with competition from the U.S., in particular, and foreign markets in general, during much of its corporate life.
The name of the company was peculiar, with “Gutta Percha and Rubber” being partly a corporate brand as well as the names of generic products (gutta percha is a product that was similar to, yet different from rubber). It was kind of like the words “toilet paper” being elevated to the status of a corporate brand to become, say, “Toilet Paper, Ltd.”
The firm produced belts for industrial and farming applications, automobile tires, fire hoses, and footwear, including those items which were widely known as “rubbers” during my growing-up years. Such rubbers, sometimes called “toe rubbers”, were intended to keep one’s business shoes safe from the potential harm to leather that comes from rain.
You may well inquire, as did I: “What were Campacs?” Sometimes the additional descriptors “camp shoes” accompany the word “Campacs”. Perhaps these were akin to today’s “runners”, with an emphasis on a relatively thick sole for urban camping/hiking settings?
Near the end of its corporate life, GP specialized in industrial applications, and one of the most notable of these, locally, concerned construction of the Deas Island Tunnel (today’s George Massey Tunnel). GP was responsible for the design of rubber gaskets to keep the Fraser River out of the tunnel during its construction.
CVA – 2010-006.062: The back side of B.C Hydro building (today The Elektra residential building). The Clements Block (on south side of Robson between Hornby and Howe) is being demolished in this image. Ernie H. Reksten photo. June 2 1965. Note: This image has been corrected by me flipping it horizontally.
It can be disorienting when a historical image’s negative is printed from the wrong side. By viewing the image to the right, you can see the way the image appears on CVA as of mid-February, 2017. (That the image was wrongly oriented when printed is apparent upon clicking on the uncorrected version of the image and enlarging it to try to read the ‘No Parking/No Stopping’ sign).
Let’s take a tour of the correctly oriented image.
The photo was taken southbound on Howe Street through the windshield of an automobile. To the right of the car (and outside the photo frame) is the courthouse (1906 Rattenbury; 1912 Hooper – annex)/art gallery. To the right and just ahead of where the car is is some metalwork. That was the above-ground indicator of the courthouse public washroom, which was located underground. The lawn surrounding the couthouse/gallery would later be removed as part of the redevelopment of the block (and replaced with concrete) to make possible the construction of such features as the civic skating rink.
The structure that is under demolition in the photo is the Clements Block (1922-65). Clements (SE corner Hornby and Robson) was home to a number of businesses, not least Danceland. Just behind Clements (facing onto Hornby Street) is the hotel that was known at the time this photo was taken as the Johann Strauss Hotel (and restaurant and cabaret). Later the hotel would be known as the Mayfair.
The church tower to the right of the BC Hydro (1957; Thom/Pratt)/Elektra block is the tower of St. Andrew’s-Wesley United Church (1933; Twizel & Twizel). The building to the left of Hydro (now The Elektra) is what was Sir William Dawson School (1913-1978; Edward E. Blackmore), the site today of Sheraton Wall Centre.
The other buildings in this image I won’t identify. Suffice to say that the area between Clements and Hydro (Block 61) was made up primarily of ground-level parking lots and would ultimately become the Erickson-designed Law Courts structure.
VPL 40788 Rembrance Day Service (at First Baptist Church), Nov 6, 1966 The Province – Ross J. Kenward photo.
I was browsing through images in the Vancouver Public Library historical photos database this morning; I saw the image above and almost immediately recognized it for what it was (and what had, apparently, been forgotten or mislaid in the institutional memory of The Province newspaper upon donating this image to VPL): that this photo was made inside my home church, in the sanctuary of First Baptist Church. This 1966 congregation (Rev. Dr. S. Arnold Westcott was Senior Minister at the time) was not collectively known to me, as I was worshipping then with my family in a smaller church in Alberta. But this image of the sanctuary is unmistakably that of FBC. It looks as though it was made from the slightly elevated choir loft at the front (north end) of the sanctuary, viewing one of the Remembrance wreaths on the podium from behind and with a view of congregants in the background. November 6, the day that this image was made, was a Sunday. That was the tradition at FBC for many years; to have the church Remembrance Service on the Sunday immediately preceding Remembrance Day (November 11th).
I cannot recall Remembrance Services past without recalling the true force behind those services for many years, Rev. James Willox Duncan (1906-2002). I can readily remember him at the front of the sanctuary on a Remembrance Sunday with the Canadian Red Ensign on the podium (the Canadian flag during both world wars and afterwards until the Maple Leaf became the official flag in 1965). There was a reading, often from John McCrae’s WWI poem, In Flanders Fields, the playing of Last Post and Rouse by a trumpeter and of Lament by bagpipes. And always, always, the very moving reading of the Ode of Remembrance (which is an excerpt from Lawrence Binyon’s poem, For the Fallen).
Padre Duncan’s obituary, reproduced below, sketches in some of the highlights of his life (I had not recalled that he died in the month of November in 2002, but it seems fitting). For an opportunity to hear Padre Duncan’s voice, one of his sermons is free online at Regent College’s Audio site. It is appropriately titled “Vitality for All Ages”.
FBC Archives. Padre James Willox Duncan, 2000 Jennifer Friesen photo.
It makes me smile today to see the number of lady congregants who were wearing head gear of various descriptions in 1966. Today, such an abundance of hats would be unthinkable (today, neckties on gents is very nearly unthinkable; having a Starbucks coffee in hand is becoming commonplace; and bringing a Tim Horton’s breakfast into the sanctuary to munch on during a worship service – if still widely considered very poor form – is not unheard of. Sadly.)
Two of the six public elevators which flank the wall which probably was home to Beatrice Lennie’s Ascension in the lobby of current Hotel Vancouver from 1939-ca1967. March 2017. Author’s Photo.
Behind the wall shown above, in the elevator court of the third (1939) Hotel Vancouver, lies, quite possibly, Ascension, a work of bas-relief sculpture created by Beatrice Lennie (1904-1987) a renowned and very able good sculptor. Doris Munroe, in her M.F.A. thesis (UBC, 1972, p. xix), described Ascension, installed in 1939, as follows:
The theme with its vertical lines, arches, elongated figures, sun and stars was one of ascent. It was finished in tones of blue steel, brass and chromium which harmonized with the cream marble walls and bronze elevator doors. The hotel was opened on May 25, 1939. At the time of the reconstruction of the hotel in 1967 the ceilings were dropped and the artist believes the mural was then boarded up and faced with a new textured facade.
The image reproduced below is the only one I’ve found that shows all of Ascension. (Also shown below is part of Ascension from a Hotel Vancouver publicity brochure.)
Bea Lennie standing with her mural for the Hotel Vancouver c 1939. From First Class: Four Graduates of the Vancouver School of Decorative and Applied Arts, 1929. Letia Richardson. 1987. The Floating Curatorial Gallery, Women in Focus, p. 40.
This is from a ca1940 Hotel Vancouver brochure (which touts on its cover that the hotel is “one of the most modern hotels in the British Empire”). There appear to be flanking images in the brochure taken from Ascension. Source: Vancouver Public Library, Special Collections (647.94711/V22va).
Ascension and the Artist
In an August 1, 1975 interview for the Vancouver Province, Lennie said:
I used to think your sculpture would outlive you, but they boarded up one of mine, a 12-foot panel in the elevator court on the main floor of the Hotel Vancouver. They covered it with a wooden wall when they lowered the ceiling. It’s discouraging in one’s own lifetime. At the time (1939), the CNR [for whom the hotel was initially built; it later became a CPR property] asked me to do something that wouldn’t be out of date in 30 years.
In another piece published about Lennie, she remarked (with bitterness and some overstatement): “I never go back to see my work because they always do such dreadful things to it” (emphasis mine). To the best of my knowledge, Ascension is the only Lennie work that is ‘lost’.
An article was published, likely in the Sun, shortly after the sculptor’s death in 1987, that recalled Lennie’s body of work and related something of her history and family background in British Columbia.¹ It is interesting that the article noted that Lennie came from a pioneer B.C. family, but there was mention made only of her maternal grandfather, Benjamin Douglas, who arrived in the province in 1862 for the Gold Rush (the Douglas border crossing near Blaine, WA was named in his honour). No mention was made of Lennie’s paternal grandfather, Rev. Robert Lennie, who came to New Westminster in 1884 and established the Baptist church that is still there (although worshipping in a different building than he would have recalled), Olivet Baptist Church. Lennie also served as ‘the first missionary pastor’ to the small body of believers who would ultimately form First Baptist Church, Vancouver.
CVA 1184-1129 – “Sculptor at work.” 1940-48. Jack Lindsay photo. Although the artist isn’t identified by CVA, I’m certain that this is an image of Beatrice Lennie in her studio.
It seems likely that Beatrice, one of Rev. Robert Lennie’s twenty grandchildren, had grown away from her grandfather’s Baptist roots.² But I wonder whether she may have been subconsciously paying tribute to her dad’s dad with the creation and naming of Ascension.
At one level, of course, the naming of her Hotel Vancouver sculpture was a case of word play. Ascension would be located in the elevator court and was one of the last things which guests would see as the elevator doors closed and they were lifted to their rooms.
But at another level, I cannot look at the image of Ascension without wondering about the prominence of stars and halo-like objects, which taken together, seem to me to speak of Easter, the highest and holiest holiday in the Christian calendar.
Hotel Vancouver – Original (1939) Main Floor Plan. Note that eight elevators appear in this plan. The two elevator shafts closest to what was designated as the porter’s area (no. 4 and no. 8) were, apparently, walled up, presumably by ca1967 with Lennie’s Ascension.
According to a concierge at the Hotel Vancouver with whom I spoke in preparing this post, there are other things buried behind that wall. The original hotel drawings called for eight elevators, but part way through its construction, it was decided that six elevators (three on each wall that flanked Ascension) were ample. The abandoned two elevator shafts remain hidden behind the wall, to this day. Along with, quite possibly, Beatrice Lennie’s bas-relief work.
CVA 1184-1130: Sculptor at work in studio. 1940-48. Jack Lindsay. Again, unidentified by CVA, this seems to me to be almost certainly Bea Lennie, probably in her studio. If this is an older photo of her, it probably is of a later than that estimated by CVA.
Notes
¹The article referenced here was found in the Vancouver Art Gallery library’s clipping file and no attribution was noted. So I’m guessing that it was a Vancouver Sun piece. (For a detailed list of Lennie’s extant work and biographical info pertaining to her, see this excellent site.)
²I didn’t find in my research indication of Lennie’s religious denominational affiliation, if any.
CVA Port P1793: F.V. Bodwell, J.W. Bodwell, C.J. Loewen and H.E. Connon in front of Sich’s Corner “Real Estate & Retail Tobacconists”, 1896.
Sich’s Corner was the name of an early Vancouver tobacconist’s shop located on the southwest corner of Cambie at Cordova. The person who named it and for whom it was named remained at the corner and, indeed, in Vancouver, for scarcely three years. And yet the shop’s name took on wider meaning, for several years becoming synonymous with “Cambie at Cordova”.
Thomas Thrale Sich, ca1890, VDW Souvenir Publication, 1891.
Thomas Thrale Sich (1858-1935; pronounced “sitch”) came to Vancouver from England in 1890. In England, he had been in the tea business for the better part of 10 years and, after that, worked in the hops trade for 4 years (whether he was farming or brewing them, isn’t clear). In 1890, he sailed for Canada, with his wife, Esther, and settled in Vancouver.
He opened his tobacco business at 301 Cambie. He kept in stock, among his cigars a nice variety of Cuban brands, including Havana, Upman, Partagas, Larranagas, La Intimidad, and La Corona. Among the loose tobaccos he sold were the W.D. & H.O. Wills brand and Sich’s Own Mixture (his own preparation). Imported cigarette brands included: Melachrino, Khedive (Egyptian brands), Papadupoula, and Turkish varieties. The Daily World concluded, in a profile of Sich’s Corner, that it was “one of the most prominent [stores] in the city and a very popular resort for all lovers of the weed…” (Vancouver Daily World, 1891 Souvenir Illustrated Publication, p. 18).
Sich had had enough of retail sales by late 1892, evidently, sold Sich’s Corner to other tobacconists and moved himself and Esther out to the Fraser valley. Thomas established himself as a farmer of hops somewhere between the towns of Agassiz and Harrison Hot Springs. He remained on his farm until 1895, at which time he returned to England. There, he went into business with his brother, H.J. Sich. We know that he returned to the land of the Lotus on vacation with his brother in 1905 (Province, 2 Dec 1905) There is Census evidence that by the 1910s, Sich was acting as a shipping agent in England. Thomas Sich died in 1935.
“Sich’s Corner” became a landmark until the turn of the century for early Vancouver residents — not dissimilar to the Maple Tree of the early (Gastown) townsite and the later Trorey/Birk’s Clock.
Here are a few samples from the Daily World, offering hints as to ways in which Sich’s Corner was perceived and used by early residents:
Bulletin Board: This 1892 press ‘report’ suggests that the Corner had a small-town, community bulletin board, with the problems that typically come with community bulletins: If any responsible person has charge of the bulletin board at “Sich’s Corner” he ought to see that reliable news is posted there. For instance some dolt this morning credited the Conservatives with a gain of 15, when the morning papers showed that the net gain was by the Liberals for 16. (VDW 7 July 1892)
Lost and Found: Lost: Fox terrier dog, black and tan head, evenly marked: black spot at root of tail, making a ring around tail; answers to the name of Fleet. anyone returning him to Buxton & Rodney’s cigar store, Sich’s corner, will receive the above reward [$5.00], and anyone detaining him after this notice will be prosecuted. (VDW 7 April 1893)
Way-finder for nearby businesses: NOTICE: Crowder & Penzer’s uptown coal office has been removed to 307 Cambie St next to Sich’s Corner. (VDW 2 Dec 1893)
Bicycle/pedestrian concerns (how little has changed, in this regard!): The rule should be rigidly enforced concerning the ringing of bells. A lady was nearly knocked down at Sich’s Corner on Saturday night by a furious [speeding] cyclist. (VDW 29 Apr 1895)
Thomas sold Sich’s Corner in 1892 to Buxton & Rodney, other tobacconists. J.G.V. Field-Johnson opened a realty/brokerage business at 301 Cambie in 1898 and for some years, the two businesses seemed to co-exist at the same address (as shown in the photo at the beginning of this post).
The Sich’s Corner brand was retained until roughly 1900, after which the name gradually fell into disuse.
CVA 810-285: The Townsite Corner – Cambie at Cordova. 1950-68. “Sich’s Corner”, although by this time, the name had long since fallen into disuse.
Pipe Organ in the former St. Andrew’s Presbyterian (New Westminster) and, today, Emmanuel Pentecostal Church, ca1920. Russell Photo Studio. (Note: The seat for the pastor is, curiously, raised in this image. This struck me as odd, as it puts the pastor (or pastors – there is room for more than one, here!) well above the pulpit). (MDM Collection)
I purchased this photo at The History Store. Since then, I’ve been on a quest to know which church it is/was that housed the amazing-looking pipe organ.
What I Knew (or Thought I Knew)
The clues I had to work with were:
The photographer was the Russell Photo Studio of New Westminster. Vincent Russell had his New Westminster studio only from 1918-21. (He later established a photo studio in Penticton in the 1930s and in the City of Vancouver in the 1940s).¹ This led me to suspect strongly that the image was made in a New Westminster church.
The organ pipes appeared to be distinctive. In all of the images that I’ve perused of church interiors in Greater Vancouver, I never saw another set of pipes with a similar design. The closest set I saw was at St. Paul’s Anglican in Vancouver.² The design on the pipes in my image was similar to that of St. Paul’s, but definitely different.
I was pretty sure that this sanctuary wasn’t any of Olivet Baptist’s several structural incarnations. I saw no sign of a baptismal tank behind the choir loft (where Baptist churches normally would have situated it) nor the tell-tale curtain that would typically be drawn across when the tank wasn’t in use.
I looked at every online archive of photos that I could think of and spoke with everyone whom I thought may have some knowledge of where the organ pipes were located. No dice.
Then it occurred to me to contact New Westminster historian, Jim Wolf. And Jim knew! Apparently, the church in question was formerly St. Andrew’s Presbyterian (New Westminster), and today is home to Emmanuel Pentecostal Church.
What I Now Know (or Think I Know)
Emmanuel Pentecostal Church Sanctuary. February 2018. MDM Photo.
Here are a few bullets about the organ and the building in which it resides:
The building in which the organ is situated is sometimes called “New St. Andrew’s” (as opposed to “Old St. Andrew’s“, which is extant, and is now the church hall; it stands next door). The “new” structure was erected in 1888-89. Architect was George William Grant (who also designed Olivet Baptist’s first building, and that of Holy Trinity (Anglican) Cathedral, among many, many other structures in New West).
Dominant decorative motif on pipes appears to be maple leaves³
Organ ‘console’ (whence the instrument is played) is located behind choir loft
According to Historic Places, this organ is “one of the largest, west of Winnipeg”; surely, also, among the oldest, as well.
St. Andrew’s Presbyterian seems to have been one of the roughly 70% of Presbyterian congregations that joined the Church Union movement. Rev. A. C. Wishart was called to St. Andrew’s in 1931 and it seems to me that he must have been the last Presbyterian pastor called to that church. Ultimately (sometime in the 1932-35 period, I’m guessing), St. Andrew’s joined Queen’s Avenue United Church and later sold the St. Andrew’s buildings.
I was told today by the Emmanuel Pentecostal congregant who kindly granted me admission to their sanctuary, that Emmanuel has been worshipping in the former Presbyterian building since the 1940s. Although the pipe organ is rarely used by the church, sadly, I must give considerable credit to the congregation (and to the City of New Westminster) for preserving both Old and New St. Andrew’s buildings.
Here are a few other images made today of the organ and the church building:
(Crop of) Van Sc P15: Vancouver, B.C.from the air looking east from Lost Lagoon, 1931. Annotated by MDM.
Purcell Hall and the B.C. School of Church Music (the two were ‘tied at the hip’ for most of their lives) came into being in 1936 at the SW corner of Georgia at Denman Streets (1808 W Georgia), adjacent to where the Running Room is located today. The Hall/School had two pianos and a Hammond Electric Organ. It was founded and directed by Frederick Chubb with occasional teaching assistance from his son, Arthur Chubb.
It was never publicly stated, as far as I could tell, where the name of the hall originated, but it seems safe to assume that it was borrowed from the late 17th century English baroque composer, Henry Purcell. If this was the origin of the Hall’s name, it was a peculiar choice, for the music that was played there was predominantly modern. Holst, Ravel, and Vaughn Williams were more likely to be played and sung there than were Bach, Handel or Purcell. Indeed, I could find just one occasion when a Purcell work was played at the Hall/School.
One of the major users of the space, in addition to private and Church Music School recitals, was the B.C. Music Festival competition. (It was from the 1937 Festival programme that I first learned of the existence of Purcell Hall).
Province. April 30, 1941.
The School was at pains to portray itself as non-sectarian. “[I]ts help is willingly given to churches which feel the need of fine church music, especially in the case of smaller churches where the musical equipment may be unavoidably crude and undeveloped” (Province, 19 April 1937). Non-denominationalism may have been a goal of the school, but in fact it tended to be dominated by Anglicans (the Chubbs were Anglicans) and by the very nature of the music that was played there, which tended to exclude participation by denominations that were ‘lower church’ in terms of music preference (e.g., Baptists, Pentecostals). The music was simply too high brow, even ‘snooty’ for such churches.
The School of Church Music (Vancouver) seems to have been modelled to some extent on the St. Nicholas School for Church Music (today it is known as the Royal School of Church Music – RSCM). It may be that one or both Chubbs spent time at the English school. At the inaugural recital given at the Vancouver Hall/School in November 1936, a lecture was given by Leonard Wilson (local Anglican church organist and later Sun music critic) about the English school.
Purcell Hall faded to black even more quietly than it had started. By 1943, the Hall/School no longer appeared in the Vancouver directory, and that address was being used as a gathering place by a church called the Christian Institute. By 1946, the Sunday occupants of the former Purcell Hall were Parkway Gospel Hall; they were still there in 1953. By 1955, it had become a coffee shop. (Whether or not it was deemed necessary to demolish and rebuild the site for this new use, isn’t known by me).
Purcell Hall seems to have been widely forgotten, today. It was a very tiny meeting space (I’d be surprised if it could have seated many more than 50 people); the space as it appeared in 1978 appears below. (1)
CVA 786-8.02: 1802 W. Georgia Street, 1978. Annarva (a retail TV shop adjacent to the Royal Bank in the late 1970s) was the location from 1936-1943 of Purcell Hall. It appears to have been a very small space.
Note
(1) Many thanks to Robert, of the very detailed Westendvancouver blog for tracking down this CVA photo of the former site of Purcell Hall and for his help with a couple other details in this post.
Dominion Construction drawings of Iron Fence/Notice Board Memorials. First Baptist Church Archives. Who the draftsman was (V.E.W.) is unknown to me. But the person who was the drawing checker, C.B., was almost certainly FBC Deacon and Dominion Construction Chief Executive, Charles Bentall. (Note: In the drawing, the notice board appears to be situated squarely (at 90 degrees) with the sanctuary wall. In fact, it was placed roughly at 45 degrees across the lawn).
Judging from what I’ve heard and what appears to be the ‘vision’ of the current First Baptist Church building project, upon its completion, there will no longer be an iron fence surrounding the garden near the tower entry. That is, to me at least, a bit of a pity — not only for the loss of the fence itself, but for what it (and the already-gone notice board) represented.
It may come as a surprise to many of today’s FBC members and adherents to learn that the iron fence was donated in 1952 by the Selman family as a memorial to three generations of Selmans in Vancouver, and the notice board in memory of Flying Officer Robert Gilroy (“Bob”) Selman, an FBC member who died in WWII. If you weren’t around the church in 1952, these are the sorts of facts that easily slip away. There is no plaque (correctly, in my view) on the fence, nor was anything affixed to the notice board, as far as I know, that identified these items as donations of the Selmans.
Excerpt from 1952 FBC Board of Management Minutes. First Baptist Church Archives.
For those who are regular readers of VAIW, the Selman name may ring a bell: the story of the drowning death of young Elva Selman at Second Beach in 1908. How was Elva related to these Selmans? She would have been, had she lived, a great-aunt of Gordon Rex Selman (one of the donors).
The wooden notice board, three or four years ago (after serving some 60 years), had decayed to the point where it could no longer function and had to be destroyed. It was replaced with the — patently unsuitable — digital monstrosity which, today, squats across the garden lawn behind the iron fence.
Part of the Iron Fence Memorial and the Notice Board Memorial in the FBC Centennial Garden. From Our First Century: 1887-1987, by Leslie J. Cummings, p.78.
CVA 99-1200.5: View of the deck of H.M.S. New Zealand, ca1913. Stuart Thomson photo.
This post will showcase a few of the photos made by Vancouver photographer, Stuart Thomson, in 1913 on the occasion of a visit to the city of H.M.S. New Zealand.
The ship had been funded by New Zealand as a gift to Britain and was launched in 1911. It was a battlecruiser of the indefatigable class. Commissioned into the Royal Navy in 1912, it was sent on a 10-month goodwill tour of British dominions in 1913. It arrived in Vancouver on July 27th and stayed here for a week, after which it left for Victoria.
The image above shows Captain Lionel Halsey and other crew on the deck of the New Zealand.
CVA 99-1197: H.M.S. New Zealand at anchor in Burrard Inlet, 1913. Stuart Thomson photo.
While Mayor Baxter may have got a little carried away when referring to the visit as epoch-marking, there was no question that the coming of the New Zealand was a big deal. Among the events to help celebrate the arrival: the I.O.D.E. (Imperial Order Daughters of the Empire) had planned a ball; the Thoroughbred Association had organized a day at Minorou Racetrack (in Richmond), the Canadian Club would stand Captain Halsey a lunch (he would pay for his meal by delivering a talk, subsequently), and His Worship himself declared Saturday, August 2 to be a Public Half Holiday, whereby all businesses were to close between noon and 6pm “to enable all citizens to witness the parade of the crew of H.M.S. New Zealand to Brockton Point grounds” and the later sports at Coal Harbour.
Daily World, 29 July 1913. (What, pray, is “Balkan Style” in this context?)
CVA 99-1200: H.M.S. New Zealand forward main armament, 1913. Stuart Thomson photo.
Among the countries visited by the New Zealand prior to and after Victoria (not all ports of call were British dominions), were: Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Tasmania, Fiji, Hawaii, Panama, Peru, Chile, Uruguay, Brazil, Jamaica, Bermuda, and then back to its home port of Portsmouth, England.
CVA 99-347: H.M.S. New Zealand, Pelorus Jack, Mascot, 1913. Stuart Thomson photo.
The photo above shows the New Zealand’s mascot, Pelorus Jack. The bulldog was named for a dolphin that was famous for escorting ships into New Zealand’s harbour. There were two mascots of the H.M.S. New Zealand over its 10 years of service. This was the first one.
CVA 99-1200.6: An officer (Captain Lionel Halsey of H.M.S. New Zealand) and civilians on a small boat at the Coal Harbour dock. Denman Arena is in the background. 1913. Stuart Thomson photo.
The images immediately above and below this paragraph relate to the sports that were held on the Public Half Holiday at Coal Harbour. Captain Halsey is rightmost in the photo above; he is also visible in the diving photo below (to the left of the platform wearing his Captain’s hat, as usual). Who was making the attractive leap from the diving board, I do not know. Other sports anticipated for the holiday included: sock race, three-legged race, gun wheel race (that one is a mystery to me), and tug-of-war.
CVA 99-1200.7 – A man diving off a high board with crowd watching, 1913. Stuart Thomson photo.
All of the photos in this post were made by Stuart Thomson, and were probably among his earliest professional images. He arrived in Vancouver from his birth country of Australia in 1910. Within a couple of years of arriving in Vancouver, he had launched his photography business. Already, in evidence is his custom of shooting pin-sharp, well-exposed and composed photos. A video tribute to early Vancouver photographers is viewable here.
CVA 99-5427: Women typing, ca1937. Stuart Thomson photo.
This post focusses on a series of photographs made in about 1937 by the great pro photographer, Stuart Thomson, of what appears to be adult education going on in a variety of technical subjects.
The photo above, it may be argued from our 21st century perspective, doesn’t appear to be of a particularly technical subject. After all, the young women seem to be doing what I’m doing now and what nearly all computer-literate people on the planet do on a daily basis. Aren’t they? No, these ladies are doing something quite a bit more complex than typing on a Mac that familiar ode to the fast fox who leapt over the lazy canine!
Let’s begin with a ‘key’ difference between typing on the ’30s-era Underwood Typewriters shown above and a computer keyboard. As any of you who have tried to type on one of these manual machines knows, it is altogether a different experience. Without getting into details, I can testify from early experience learning to type on a 70’s version of these manual typewriters that it is a decidedly wrist-strengthening exercise!
But more is going on in the photo above than merely a physical workout. These women are performing a mentally challenging skill. If you go to the original CVA link of the photo and examine closely the source material they are working from on their desks, you will see what appears to be undecipherable squiggly code. That’s shorthand, a form of stenography. A subject which, if you went to school in Canada when I did (the 1970s), or later, you probably didn’t encounter. I was able to identify the text they were typing from as shorthand because my Dad was a business ed instructor and taught women (and some men) how to write and read in this code.
So the women in the photo are not simply typing “longhand” words, but are doing the more complex task of reading shorthand, translating that in their brains into longhand and then typing those words with their Underwoods. It seems to me likely that the class wasn’t merely a typing class, but a shorthand and typing course! I have new respect for those women and the many others who did these things on a daily basis for many years…skills that are largely lost today (unless you trained as a court reporter to use a steno-type machine).
CVA 99-5439: Men in headphones learning technical skills, ca.1937. Stuart Thomson photo.
For the next photo and the other two shown in this post, I have leaned heavily on the knowledge of my old friend, Wes, who seems to me to have wide-ranging knowledge on all sorts of subjects!
So what were the ‘technical skills’ which the men in headphones were learning? It looks as though they are transcribing another form of code — probably Morse code. Given the period at which this series of photos was made (pre-second-world-war), this would be a useful skill to have learned.
CVA 99-5436: Group of men soldering (actually, this shows just one man welding – not soldering; he is being observed by someone who appears to be an instructor (standing behind him) and a couple of other students), ca1937. Stuart Thomson photo.
This is a great photo. It really demonstrates Mr. Thomson’s skill at managing available light to great advantage. It looks to me as though he used just a single light source for this image in addition to the light thrown off the welder’s tool. Wes noted that the blackboard drawing shows how to bevel the edges of two pieces of steel where they are to be welded so that you achieve a strong joint.
CVA 99-5437: Men looking at electric machinery, ca1937. Stuart Thomson photo.
The curious machine shown above is identified on the metal plate attached to it as a “spark tester”. But what exactly these gents are testing with it, I cannot say (could it be testing the spark on a motor’s ignition?)
Location
So, do we have any idea where these images were made? It seems to me doubtful that these would have been made at any of the private business colleges in town at that time – although that wouldn’t have been a bad guess if the steno typists had been a stand-alone image. But it seems to have been made as part of the series with the very specialized equipment (and photographed entirely with males in those images). Given the presence of this, presumably expensive, and not-widely-available machinery, my best guess is that these photos were made at the Vancouver Technical Secondary School at night (or perhaps on weekends) as part of the Vancouver School Board‘s adult education program.
The only problem with my guess that this series was made at VanTech, however, is the presence in the first photo of women. According to the VanTech link, females weren’t admitted to VanTech until 1940. The series of photos was made, according to the City of Vancouver Archives, ca1937. So it could be that they were made a little bit later (1940 isn’t far off the ca1937 mark, after all), or, more likely I think, the no-women-prior-to-1940 rule did not apply to the adult education extension program.
(Crop of) CVA – Sch N70.2: Exterior view of Vancouver Technical School, 1938. W J Moore photo.
To see others in the series of fascinating adult ed tech school images by Thomson, go here.
The Islander is today known by some as a gold-laden ship that was sunk by an iceberg off the Alaskan coast in 1901. But what seems to have been forgotten (1) is that prior to that unhappy event, it served as the principal ship for transporting Vancouverites to Victoria and Victoria residents to the Lower Mainland. In short, the Islander was a very early B. C. Ferry. The circumstances around the Islander’s sinking have also been forgotten.
The Islander was built in Glasgow, Scotland at Napier, Shanks & Bell shipwrights for the Canadian Pacific Navigation Co. (2) The Islander was designed by the great BC ship captain, then the head of CPN, John Irving (1854-1936). The steamship was finished by 1888 and began its lengthy journey from the U.K., across the Atlantic, around South America at Cape Horn and up to California, from San Francisco to Victoria, and to Vancouver at the end of December. What a Christmas gift to the recently incorporated City of Vancouver!
The Vancouver World described the steamer (somewhat incongruously) as both a “Gulf of Georgia Greyhound” and a “Floating Palace”. It’s status as Greyhound of the Gulf was established in it making the Victoria-Vancouver sailing (from harbour to harbour) in just over 4 hours. (Today, all told, the trip from city to city takes about the same time, when one factors in driving to/from ferry terminals) (Vancouver Daily World, 31 Dec 1888).
Royal BC Archives. Item B-02257 – Part of the interior (dining saloon?) of the SS Islander. 1901
As for its palatial features, according to the World, the dining saloon could seat 76, with the CPN’s monogram carved into the wood of each chair. The linen, silver and plateware were apparently among the best money could buy. The state rooms were fitted out with electricity, a call bell, a lavatory, and “an abundant supply of water”. There were four (four?!) bridal state rooms. The cabins could sleep a total of 130 people. The upholstery throughout the Islander was of “the most recherche [desirable?] description” and the ceilings were “elaborately ornamented with carved work and lincrusta of beautiful design”. Finally, “life boats, preservers, and all such appliances are to be found in suitable places should they be wanted.” (This sentence makes it seem as though any passenger who would insist on having such things handy was just the tiniest bit gauche!) (Vancouver Daily World, 31 Dec 1888).
Royal BC Archives. Item A-06316 – Central staircase aboard the SS Islander. ca1890.
I should pause to remind you that the principal function of the Islander for most of its sailing year was to provide ferry service between Vancouver and Victoria. There would have been no need on that run for cabins, much less for state rooms (bridal ones or otherwise!) I can see why the ship would be so outfitted for the 60-hour Vancouver-Skagway trip, but, that service was offered only from July through September (at least in the earliest years of the Islander’s Alaska runs starting ca1892). So why have a “floating palace” of a ferry including cabins and state rooms instead of offering a somewhat more basic ferry ship with serviceable seating areas (comparable to what is provided today on Gulf ferry runs)? I don’t know. Perhaps the sea traveller of the late Victorian period could not conceive of an ocean journey (no matter how brief) having anything less than cabins and seemingly first-class service.
The Islander would depart Vancouver at 1pm, arriving in Victoria a little after 5.00pm. Travel back to Vancouver was a little less convenient, departing Victoria at 4am and arriving in the Terminal City at sometime around 8.00am.
Sinking and Salvage
The Islander left Skagway, Alaska for Vancouver at 7.30pm on August 14, 1901. By 2.15am on August 15th, the ship was sunk, 20 minutes after having struck an iceberg off the coast of Juneau while travelling in dense fog. The lives lost included: Captain Foote, 16 of the 65 crew, and 23 passengers (two of whom were children) of 107. (3)
The findings of the inquiry into the sinking of the Islander included the following:
[W]e find that no special instructions had been issued by the master [captain] to the pilot, or person in charge of the deck, when he left the bridge, relating to the navigation or speed of the vessel in the event of falling in with floating ice — which was not unexpected in the locality through which the ship was passing. We think that Pilot Le Blanc is open to censure for his action in keeping the ship full speed — at the rate of nearly fourteen knots an hour — after having seen floating ice some ten minutes before the accident.
We would also condemn the custom apparently in vogue in coast waters in leaving the bridge of any steamer at night, and more especially a passenger steamer, in charge of only one officer. (4)
Victoria Daily Times. 23 Oct 1901.
There was a substantial quantity of gold that went down with the Islander stemming from mining activity in Alaska at the time. Attempts (and fantasies) at salvaging the gold began to be considered almost as soon as news of the sinking hit the press. Some of the gold was recovered in 1934, but it wasn’t until 2012 that all legal entanglements (not to mention logistical ones) were cleared away and a substantial quantity of gold was salvaged from the wreck of the Islander.
VPL 42429 Maritime Museum model boat. The Islander, 1967. Province photo.
Notes
(1) In contemporary accounts I’ve read of the S.S. Islander, it is noted that she was designed specifically for runs north and south through the inside passage. But no mention is made of her principal function: as the Gulf of Georgia Ferry.
(2) CPN was incorporated in 1883 and endured until 1901 (shortly before the wreck of the Islander) when Canadian Pacific Railway acquired the firm and made it an important part in the basis of CPR’s marine division (later to be known as Canadian Pacific Steamships Ocean Services, Ltd). In 1960, after job action was initiated by employees of CP Steamships, B.C.’s W. A. C. Bennett government decided to create a crown corporation called BC Ferries which has serviced BC’s coastal transportation needs since. CP Steamships got out of the passenger ocean transport business and focussed on container and other forms of ocean cartage.
Paddle-wheelers, the Premier, Yosemite, Princess Louise, and R. P. Rithet were among the ships that filled in for the Islander when she was on Alaska service, was engaged on excursion runs with private groups, or was in dry dock for servicing.
The Charmer would take over the Gulf Ferry run from the Islander after its sinking. Later, the CP Steamships would name their BC coastal ships Princess of _____ (e.g., Vancouver) to contrast with then names of their international ships (the Empress ships).
(3) The children lost in the sinking were the 1-year-old child of Mrs. J. H. Ross and her 15-year-old niece. Mrs. Ross, the wife of Yukon Governor Ross, also perished. It was thought that Mrs. Ross and the two children died in their cabin, possibly (hopefully) still asleep.
(4) The S.S. City of Seattle, only 3 months after the Islander incident, had a very narrow escape near where the Islander was sunk.
Early in the evening she had run among a number of small icebergs, and she was coming down the [Gastineau] channel under a slow bell. The weather was rather dirty [foggy], and it being hard to see any distance, the steamer was almost upon a small berg before it was seen.
The helm was immediately thrown over, and the steamer slipped past only a few feet away from the dangerous floating ice-mountain.
There are four men always on watch at night on the City of Seattle.
The Province. 2 Nov 1901.
One is forced to ask, in light of the Islander Inquiry recommendations and this experience of the City of Seattle later, whether the Islander might not have dodged its grave had it been operating under a ‘slow bell’, instead of going “hell bent for leather” at top speed, and had there been more than just a single set of eyeballs on the bridge watching for icebergs!
CVA 99-1015 – Crowd watching soccer game in progress at Cambie Street Grounds ca1920 Stuart Thomson photo. (Note: This version of 99-1015 has been cropped and had the exposure adjusted slightly by me. For the original state of the image, see CVA online).
This is a somewhat unusual view of the Cambie Street Recreation Grounds (for ome later years, the site of the long-distance bus station, later still – optimistically – dubbed Larwill Park and serving as a City car park with recent aspirations to become the site of the Vancouver Art Gallery). The image was taken from the SW corner of the block toward the NW corner. The crowd of mainly men was viewing a soccer game. And, remarkably, virtually every head in the crowd is covered. The players were evidently permitted to play bare-headed without social impunity; however, notably, the men in striped jerseys – game officials, I presume – were be-hatted.
The second site of the YMCA is visible in the distance (near mid-photo, at corner of Dunsmuir and Cambie), as is part of the Sun Tower (right) and Vancouver High School (the school’s prominent, pointed tower appears to the left, behind Cambie Street residences).
I won’t pretend to understand fully why hats were such a dominant and lasting feature of men’s and women’s fashion in the 19th and 20th centuries. For extended commentary on men’s hats in earlier years, see here and here. This near-contemporary essay written by the late, great American writer, William Zinsser, is very good.
I cannot resist showing another CVA image of an Australian cricket team visiting Vancouver in 1911 (and including the photographer of this image and of the soccer image above, Stuart Thomson, a former Aussie who emigrated to Canada the year before this image was made and who would make his home and career in Vancouver until his death in 1960). Interestingly, a couple of the gents in the photo seem not to have received ‘the memo’ and appeared hatless (gasp!).
CVA 99-123 – Australian XI [group photo, poss. S. Thomson on right in bowler hat] ca 1911 Stuart Thomson photo.
A man’s hat was the status symbol that distinguished the white man from the aborigine, the God-fearing from the heathen, the clad from the unclothed. The hat was something to raise to a lady, to remove in church, and to hang in the home. It had the magic properties of the amulet, warding off evil, shielding the wearer at the most vulnerable part of his anatomy: the crown of his skull. — Eric Nichol, Vancouver.
Crop of CVA PAN N14A – Opening Game Base Ball Season 1915, Vancouver vs. Victoria. At Athletic Park (5th and Hemlock). 1915. W J Moore.
“The world is my country and to do good my religion.”
Ludwig (“Louis”) Zimmer (1838-1895) was born in Grunberg, Hessen Darmstadt, Germany, but left his homeland when a young man. He settled in Guelph, ON in 1861. In 1867, he married Salome (b1829), who was also born in Germany. His business focus during the time he was in Ontario was on wild animal hides (oddly, to my way of thinking, he incorporated the hide trade into his Vancouver business a couple of years after getting his herbalist business business going here). He left Guelph and settled in Waterton, NWT (later Alberta), later living for a brief time in Winnipeg before coming to Vancouver in the autumn of 1888. He and Salome did not have kids.
During his years in Vancouver, Zimmer identified himself as “Prof.” and as a “Herb Druggist” operating out of 10 (later 110) Abbott St. (nearby the railway track). I don’t know what educational background he had, but it wasn’t uncommon in Vancouver’s earliest years for someone to refer to himself as “Prof.” when he had less than advanced educational credentials, but wanted to be identified as having such.
Zimmer was a frequent advertiser in the Vancouver press. One of his earliest ads read as follows:
“Relief for all pains. I have just received a large consignment of fresh herbs that, properly handled, will certainly cure all diseases as mentioned below. These herbs have not lost their virtue by long standing on shelves, but are the recent season’s growth with all their strength. They will cure the following diseases:
For colds and burns of all descriptions. Dyspepsia. For worms in the Bowels and Stomach, for Swellings in any part of the body, for Killing Tape Worm, for Relief of Toothache, for cure of Seventy-seven different Fevers, for Swellings, for Worms in all Joints of the Body, for Colic, for Stopping Rupture in Young People [acne, I think, rather than hernias], for Erysipelas, Wild Fire or Saint Anthony’s Fire, for Burned Sores, for Limbs, for Sore Eyes. for Healing Wounds, for Polypus [polyps] of the Heart, for Fresh Wounds, for Jumping Toothache, for Killing Hair Worm, for Rheum in the Eye, for Curing Worms in the Fingers, for Remedy of all kinds, Bodily Defects (to cure old blemishes), for Jaundice, for Podagra, for Cure of Warts, Cramps and many diseases peculiar to Men, such as Gonorrhea, Gleet, Etc.
When all physicians fail to affect a cure, call and see what herbs can do for you..
Daily World, 23 Nov 1888
At the very least, I found that ad to be an education in medical terms that were largely unknown to me!
As I read through local news clippings in which Zimmer was mentioned, I expected eventually to come across a charge of quackery. And sure enough, within days of the above ad appearing, the following appeared in the same paper:
An appeal will be taken in the case of Prof. Zimmer, fined the other day in the Police Court for an infraction of certain clauses of the British Columbia Medical Act. It is believed [by the Daily World, I guess, or perhaps this was a clandestine ad paid for by Zimmer] that the Professor is quite within the law in claiming that he can bring about good health by a liberal use of herbs. He is certainly doing wonderful things in this line, and is favorably spoken of by those who have consulted him.
Daily World, 28 Nov 1888
Nothing much appeared to come of this 1888 police court business. Later, in August 1894, according to the Daily World, Zimmer received a summons to appear before Justice of the Peace Schofield on a similar charge. Again, the summons seemed to fizzle (Daily World, 4 Aug 1894). I did see one brief write-up claiming that Zimmer had been fined $28 on one occasion (Daily World, 10 Oct 1889).
These moments aside, however, Zimmer seemed to carry on his herbalist business relatively unmolested by police courts or attorneys-general. Remarkably, he appears not to have been perceived as a quack by the general public. This positive perception was probably assisted by his ads which, as time went on, consisted lessof lists of ailments which he could cure with his herbs and moreof testimonials by Vancouver residents — some of whom were well known and influential. For exanple, in 1894, a lengthy ad/testimonial appeared, excerpts of which appear below:
We, the undersigned, are well acquainted with Professor Zimmer…and know him to be all that he represents himself as an Herbalist, and we recommend him to the public….
[Zimmer] does not claim to be a physician in any sense of the term, and, though often solicited, never visits a patient; but he believes in the curative virtues of herbs, roots, bark and berries and is an Herbalist and Botanist….
The Professor has traveled much and seen a great deal of the world in sunshine and shade. He is in every respect a perfect gentleman, kind-hearted and generous, whose fame as a benefactor is now spreading far and near. The cures effected by his treatment have been so astonishing that they have formed the subject of gossip throughout the province.
[Signed]
R. A. Anderson, Mayor F. Cope, ex-Mayor J.W. Horne, M.P.P. James Orr, ex-M.P.P. Henry A. Mellon, Justice of the Peace W. Godfrey, Manager, Bank of British North America M. A. MacLean, ex-Mayor Alb. Zeplien, Captain, German barque Gutenberg Thomas Dunn, hardware merchant and ship chandler John McLaren, Chief of Police V. W. Haywood, Sergeant of Police G. A. Jordan, P.M. [Police Magistrate]
[At the conclusion of that omnibus testimonial, appeared this one, specific to an individual]:
Dear Sir: It affords me much pleasure to bear testimony to the success which has attended your treatment of various diseases by the use of Botanical Remedies, and the confidence which is placed in your methods by the people of this city and district. I believe that the more extended use of herbs, which are Nature’s primary remedies, would prove highly beneficial to humanity, and I wish you every success in your efforts to bring them into popularity.
Zimmer established a ranch in the vicinity of Seymour Creek (aka Seymour River in North Vancouver near the Second Narrows Bridge). (1) The legal description of the land (in bold) in the notice was:
NOTICE is hereby given that 60 days after date I intend making application to the Chief Commissioner of Lands and Works, for permission to purchase the following described lands in Group One, north side of Burrard Inlet, in Seymour Creek Valley, District of New Westminster, viz:
Commencing at Philip’s northwest corner post on his purchase claim, thence west 20 chains, thence south 40 chains, thence east 20 chains, thence north 40 chains to point of commencement, containing 80 acres more or less.
1892 Vancouver Feb 19 Ludwig Zimmer
Daily World, 6 Apr 1892
There was consideration given in 1890 to naming a village in the Seymour Creek Valley Zimmerton in honour of Louis Z. Believe it or not! To the best of my knowledge, nothing came of this proposal. And Ludwig Zimmer seems today to be utterly forgotten by the populace of North Vancouver and Vancouver alike.
Zimmer died in 1895 at age 58. His death came about from him being outside most of the night, on his Seymour Creek ranch. It started to pour, evidently, and Prof. Zimmer didn’t get out of the rain and, thus, got himself well and truly soaked. The cold he caught that night was considered the precipitating event (if you’ll excuse the pun) that led to his death a couple of months later.
Notes
(1) There was an earlier notice (in 1889) of Zimmer’s intention to purchase 2 acres of land on Boulder Island and also to purchase land on an (unnamed) island (perhaps what is now known as Hamber Island?) west of Turtle Head. Both of these land parcels were along the North Arm of Burrard Inlet. It isn’t clear to me whether Zimmer actually purchased this land; since no mention was later made of him owning land in these places, I assume nothing came of these plans.
CVA – Str P82: Man in a wheelbarrow is pushed by the loser of a bet regarding the United States presidential election. 1892. Bailey Bros photo. (Note: Dog and kid are both too curious about stuff going on around them to hold still for the long exposure needed by the early photographer. Most of the grim adults don’t have that problem).
Who are the principal figures in this image? What is the context? And where is this bunch of early Vancouverites gathered on this occasion?
This brief article in the Vancouver Daily World is helpful:
Fulfilled the Wager
At 2:30 this afternoon, in payment of a bet made on the United States Presidential election, Dave Douglas wheeled R. G. McKay along Cordova Street from Dunn’s hardware store to the Real Estate Exchange. While on the way Mr. McKay waved an American flag that he had carried in a [Grover] Cleveland procession in Cincinnati in 1884.
— Vancouver Daily World 14 Nov 1892
The U.S. presidential election in 1892 involved incumbent, Republican Benjamin Harrison, Democrat Grover Cleveland, and Populist James Weaver. Cleveland and his running mate, Adlai Stevenson I (not to be confused with grandson Adlai Stevenson II) — known informally as the ‘Cleve and Steve’ ticket — won the election in 1892 and became President and Vice-President, respectively.
Not a lot is known of “Dave Douglas”; he appears to have been David Freemont Douglas, Sr. who was born in Madison, Wisconsin October 1, 1865. It isn’t clear when he moved north, but he married Clara Straube in 1893 in Vancouver (she was born in Waterloo, ON). Douglas, Sr. was a realtor in Vancouver and in the States. He was still living in the Vancouver area during the 1901 Census; he moved his family to Alberta for a while, and ended up in California where he died in February 1917.¹
About the bet winner, Robert G. McKay, we know he lived in the St. Paul, Minnesota area during the 1880s. He married Ann D’Arcy and had a daughter named Constance. In the 1890s, McKay moved up to Vancouver where he remained a relatively brief time. He was back in Minnesota by about 1900. He was involved in realty sales both in Minnesota and in Vancouver. His daughter, Constance — who made a name for herself as an author and producer of pageants — married Roland Holt, the son and heir of publisher, Henry Holt (Burlington Free Press, Apr 7 1923).
The principal connections between Douglas and McKay seem to have been their country of birth (USA) and their occupation (realty).
The American flag in the image above, which presumably is the flag obtained by McKay in Grover Cleveland’s earlier presidential win in 1884 (the first of Cleve’s two, non-consecutive presidential terms) would have been a 38-star version of the stars and stripes, I’m assuming. (By 1892, the flag consisted of 44-stars).
According to the Daily World article reproduced above, the wheelbarrow trip began at Dunn’s Hardware, which was in the Dunn-Miller block — today, more commonly known as the Army & Navy Department Store. The ride proceeded west from the hardware up Cordova for about two blocks until they reached Cambie, at which intersection, they would have turned left and stopped on the west side of Cambie at the “Real Estate Exchange” (today, where Danny’s Inn is located). The image at the top of this post was made at the wheelbarrow trip’s finish point.
CVA – Str P222: The west side of Cambie Street near Cordova Street. 1888.
Notes
¹Thanks to Robert of WestEndVancouver for his impressive digging that yielded these details about Douglas and McKay.
CVA 174-01 – Who could this be? Is it Bertha Goudron? Or someone else?
Who was this attractive woman with such a determined countenance¹?
If you were to ask this question at the City of Vancouver Archives — where this photograph has resided, probably, for most of its life — staff there might, quite sensibly, direct you to the inscription near the bottom of the portrait (Bertha Goudron) and to the ‘title’ and ‘scope and content’ sections of the photo record: Bertha Goudron, who came from France and was proprietor of “Goudron’s Hardware on Hastings Street.”
However, to borrow a phrase from a Professor I know, putting your faith in such a strategy, in this case, “would lead you to a bad place.”
Why?
Bertha Marie Goudron was born 1890, so (if the date of the photo is roughly accurate, and I’m assuming that it is; although I’d bump it up a year to 1891, the year the family moved to Vancouver from Montreal), the subject of the portrait would have been a babe-in-arms rather than a 30-something woman.
Bertha, like all her siblings and her mother, Malvina, was born in Montreal, not France; the only family member to have been born in France was Bertha’s father, Jules²;
Goudron’s Hardware (1891-1898) was located at 424 Westminster Ave.; never on Hastings Street (it was about half a block south of Hastings, on the east side of today’s Main St.)
Bertha was never an owner of the family hardware store. That was her parents’ joint concern until Jules died in 1897 (Vancouver Daily World 27 Nov 1897). Note: In the Vancouver directory listings for the shop in 1894 and 1895, both Goudrons appeared, but Mrs. Malvina Goudron in each case appeared first! More importantly, the name on the shop was “Malvina Goudron”; Jules’ name doesn’t appear anywhere on the signage — at least not in the ca1891 photo shown below.³
I believe the portrait shown above was made in Vancouver (by a photographer unknown to CVA), not, for example, by a photographer based in Montreal. The reason I reached that conclusion is the very distinctive armchair in which the sitter is posed. The same chair appears in this Vancouver portrait made of W. L. Fagan and this one of Alfred Wallace.
Bertha didn’t have any sisters, and that fact, taken together with the foregoing leads me to conclude that the woman pictured above is not Bertha, but her mother, Malvina Goudron.
CVA Ch P95 – Exterior of Malvina Goudron’s Market Hardware (424 Westminster Ave.), ca 1891. Harry T Devine photo.
Bertha Goudron
I suspect that CVA has correctly identified the photo below as being of Bertha. There is definitely a family resemblance between this image and the first one in this post. But this woman, it seems to me, has a more rebellious spirit; there is a mischievous smile on her lips; and her eyes say to me “I’ll try anything once!”
CVA 174-12 – Portrait of Bertha Goudron, ca1910. I don’t recognize the photographer’s mark as being a Vancouver image-maker. It may have been a pro on Vancouver Island, however, where her sometime-husband, Edward Marcotte, had a farm.
CVA claims, as of the publication date of this post, that the year of this photo is ca1900. But this woman appears to be wearing a wedding ring on the appropriate finger. Bertha married Edward Marcotte in 1910 (and was divorced from him by 1919 – the year he remarried), thus I conclude that it was made more likely ca1910.
First Baptist Church’s First Chapel
You may wonder how on earth First Baptist Church could wriggle into this post about a patently French-Canadian, Roman Catholic family.
This segment serves as a sort of update to my post titled The First First, which pertained to the location of First Baptist’s first owned worship building. You will see in the “Post-Chapel Applications” section of that post that I mention the “Coudron Hardware” being the purchaser and modifier of the former chapel.
Well, you don’t need me to tell you, now, that “Coudron’s Hardware” should actually read “Goudron’s Hardware”!
Yes, the formidable-looking lady whose portrait is featured in this post was the owner of the first post-chapel application of the little building that once was FBC’s.
²The family consisted of (with birth years): Jules (husband, ca1851); Malvina (wife, 1859); Paul (son, 1881; “for a number of years booking agent for the old Orpheum Theatre” – Province, 3 Jan 1934); Gaston (son, 1886); Alexander (son, 1888); Bertha (daughter, 1890). Some of the given names differ, at times, due to French spelling variations (e.g., Berthe, Alexandre, Malvine). The surname has been misspelled, notably: “Gondron” in B.C. vital statistics and in census records, and “Coudron” in CVA’s photo record showing the family’s hardware store. I am in the process of seeking corrections to these errors.
³Jules’ hardware store failure in Montreal may have had something to do with the emphasis on Malvina as owner of their Vancouver enterprise. An “insolvent notice in the matter of Jules Goudron Hardware, Montreal” appeared in the Montreal Gazette on 11 Sept 1891.
SGN 167 – Two of the McIntosh sisters (probably twins Grace and Gertrude, roughly 21, here) at Greer’s Beach (aka “Tent Town” aka, later, “Kitsilano Beach”), 1894? Bailey Bros photo. There are two other related images that appear to have been made the same day by Bailey Bros. One of these shows the sisters having some fun with (I’m guessing), their brother, William. The other shows the sisters posing with an oar and a musical instrument.
I’m not sure what it is about this image that I find compelling. It is a well-made photograph, to be sure; the exposure and composition are flawless. But I don’t think the technical competence of the photographer is what draws me. It may be the uncommon playfulness of the subjects in this late-Victorian image; not just the obvious sisterly affection evident between the girls, but also the discarded clothes, hats, and even the business end of a broom, upon a bed. Evidently, nobody did much of a tidy-up of this tent before the photographer arrived!
How do I know that these ladies are McIntosh sisters? Well, none other than J. S. Matthews so avers. On the verso of the print held at the City Archives, Vancouver’s first Archivist has scrawled (over his signature): “[T]hese are the McIntosh girls.” But ofwhich McIntosh family were they? Matthews gives a hint in a related note in which he claimed that there were “several” McIntosh daughters and a son, and that they were “a prominent family”.
I had a look at the census records for 1891 for McIntosh families in Vancouver consisting of “several” girls and one boy. There was only one family I could identify that met those criteria. The family headed by Charlotte McIntosh (and the late, by this time, Alexander) and their progeny: William (31), who was a local butcher (31); Margaret (27), Maude (21), Grace, who taught at Central School (18), Gertrude (18) and Fanny, who became a dressmaker for awhile at Hudson’s Bay Co. (16) — one son and five daughters.
How can I be sure the image was taken at what is known today as Kitsilano Beach (which was originally named, informally, Greer’s Beach, after a “squatter” on CPR-owned land, Sam Greer; and even more informally as ‘Tent Town’)? Again, thanks to notes left by J. S. Matthews on the back of the print shown above. He noted that the tent was on “Kitsilano Beach” and that it sat on the “present [in 1937, when he wrote the note] ‘Hotel Site Park’ at the foot of McNicol (sic) Ave.” at the “north end” of the beach. I think he meant by this that the tent was situated near the ‘chin’ of Kits point. This looks accurate to me, given the image of Tent Town shown below ca1900; in order for the McIntosh tent to have been so surrounded by trees as it plainly was (this is clearest in the two other McIntosh tent images that are part of the series made by Bailey Bros.; see the caption above for the links), the tent would need to have been located toward the northern end of the beach, closer to Kits Point (where a pretty thick stand of trees stood) than to the beach itself.
Be P99 – Greer’s Beach (Kitsilano Beach), aka as Tent Town, ca1900. See my annotation with arrow showing where I think the McIntosh tent images were made.
Speculation on Proposed CPR Hotel at Kits Beach
What follows is indirectly related to the tent image of the McIntosh sisters. It pertains to a proposed hotel drawing by American architect, Edward Osborn, reproduced (from the University of Washington Libraries site) by my friend, Jason Vanderhill, at his blog, Illustrated Vancouver.¹
Jason maintains that the proposed hotel shown in the drawing was to go on the 1600 block of Beach Avenue.
I’m speculating that the location of the hotel was to have been at the rough location of the tents shown in the images earlier in this post (almost directly across English Bay from 1600 Beach).
See this excerpt from 1912 Goad’s Fire Insurance Map for Kitsilano Point (and the notation of “Hotel Reserve” at the corner of McNicoll and Maple).
1912 Goad’s Fire Insurance Map showing Kits CPR “Hotel Reserve” at McNicoll and Maple.
Here is what Matthews has to say about the “hotel reserve”, aka the “hotel site”:
The “Hotel Site” is so named from the fact that it so appears on certain early maps of Vancouver as the site of a proposed C.P.R. hotel. The piece of land so known is bound by McNichol (sic) Avenue and Maple Street, and was so marked on the maps when the section of land to the east of Kitsilano Beach was surveyed and opened for occupancy and settlement in 1909. At that time, the General Superintendent of the the Canadian Pacific Railway in Vancouver was Mr. Richard Marpole, and it is stated that it was his dream to have erected on the “Hotel Site” a palatial tourist resort hotel.
In the real estate boom days [what period in Vancouver cannot be called “real estate boom days”?] the Board of Park Commissioners secured an option on the site for the park purposes for $200,000. The purchase price not being available, they [the Park Board] continued to lease it for many years [from the CPR], paying a rental equal to the amount of taxes imposed. Finally, about 1929 or 1928, a bylaw to purchase park sites was passed by the Electorate and the “hotel site” purchased. In the meantime, the option had been dropped, and they finally secured it for $50,000, one quarter of the original price.
— James S. Matthews, Early Vancouver, Vol II, p.410
The CPR Hotel proposal at Greer’s Beach seems to have had some possibility of development in the 1901-02 period; mention was made in the 2 November 1901 issue of the Vancouver Daily World that work on it would begin “at once”. This unattributed claim was made by the World following a site visit by Marpole, “Mr. Hamilton” (presumably L. A. Hamilton, representing the City) and Thomas Tait (CPR transportation manager).
The last local newspaper reference I could find to the ‘CPR hotel site’ in Kitsilano was in the Vancouver Daily World of 28 January 1914 summarizing recent Vancouver Park Board decisions: “The area known as the C. P. R. hotel site would be reserved wholly for picnic grounds and kept as far as possible in its natural condition. Dead trees would be removed and shell walks leading to the sea promenades and the pier would be laid down.”
The park, as it now is, seems to have been left pretty much as the Park Board in 1914 decided.
The northern end of the former “CPR hotel site” at Kits Beach. July 2019. MDM Photo.
Notes
¹There is a question mark in my mind regarding this speculation about the drawing of the hotel. That pertains to Osborn’s nationality. Why would the CPR have gone to an American architect to design the proposed hotel when there were many competent local architects whom they might have approached?
Jean Fuller was one of very few black nightclub singers, and probably was the only female black nightclub owner, in Vancouver in the 1930s and ‘40s.
The first appearance I found of Miss Fuller in Vancouver newspapers was in a review of ‘Harlem Cabaret’, sponsored by the BC Institute of Journalists in October 1929. The review was written in a manner that would be described today as somewhat offensive; this near-final paragraph mentions Jean: “[A] group of dancing beauties presented some clever numbers that were the very raciest of entertainment and helped to put the cabaret over [as in ‘over the top’, I assume]. Then at the dusky midnight hour Jean Fuller and Joe Wilson, two of Harlem’s own folk, sang and danced to the delight of everybody” (Sun, 29 October 1929).
I suspect “Harlem’s own folk” was meant to be a clever way of making the point that Wilson and Fuller were black without saying so (I’m pretty sure that Jean, at least, never lived in Harlem).
Early Years
Jean was born ca1897 in Texas – probably in or near Houston – to Frank Fuller and Ada White. I haven’t been able to learn much about her early life, but have found out that Jean was a graduate of a Houston school for “colored” young people. It was called the Houston Baptist Academy (later, Houston College for Negroes; today, Texas Southern University), and was founded in 1885. Mention is made of “Jeannie Fuller” in a 1906 review in the Houston Post. Jean played a leading role in a musical produced by the Academy’s music department that year. It was called Ruth the Moabitess, and was based on the Old Testament story of Ruth (in the biblical book of the same name). Jean played the soprano part of Orpah (Houston Post, 12 May 1906).
That is all I was able to learn of Jean’s early life.
Vancouver
The question of what motivated Jean to move to Vancouver has not been answered in my research. Whatever the reason(s), she seems to have settled here sometime in 1926, when she was about 30. Period directories show Jean from 1926-28 as the resident proprietress of Alter Rooms at 620 Powell (near Princess; two blocks east of Oppenheimer Park).
An early appearance by Jean in the Vancouver press was in March, 1931 in a public note of thanks from Mr and Mrs Ross Hendrix – parents of Jimi – for her singing at the funeral of another son, Leon Marshall Hendrix, who died at age 17 that year and whose service was at the African Methodist Episcopal Church near the heart of what was then Vancouver’s black community, Hogan’s Alley (Sun 24 Mar 1931).
By 1934, Jean bought what became her home for many years at 1124 Seymour, on the east side of Seymour just south of Helmcken, near the apartment block known today as Brookland Court (what was, in Jean’s day, called Lightheart Apartments). Today, the location of her home/club would have been at the northern end of Emery Barnes Park.
CVA 99-691 – ca1918. Stuart Thomson photo. I believe the home that is only partly visible in this shot is what was Jean Fuller’s business and home at 1124 Seymour Street. Neither that building nor the one which housed Central Garage in 1918 is still standing. The 6-storey apartment block remains on the corner. It was known at the time as Lightheart Apartments; today it is called Brookland Court).
Jean’s Seymour Street home also served as an unlicensed, informal nightclub which was widely known alternatively as “Nigger Jean’s” (she so named it, apparently) or as Jean’s “Chicken Inn”. About Nigger Jean’s, former Orpheum Theatre manager, Ivan Ackery, had this to say:
Jeannie’s place was full of well-known people. It was THE place to go and all the well-to-do met there. A lot of them used to get drunk and stay overnight. When you’d go in she’d whisper, “Don’t make too much noise now… I’ve got General So-and-So or Governor So-and-So asleep upstairs.” Jeannie sang the blues in the club and she used to bring in black entertainers – girls whom she’d find work for in various clubs around town.
— Fifty Years on Theatre Row (1980), 120
Because of the prominent status of many of Jean’s guests at 1124 Seymour, it was tricky for Vancouver Police Department officers to slip into the place undetected to see whether there were bootlegging or other liquor-related charges which they could lay against Jean and her guests. But on at least a couple of occasions the VPD successfully entered the premises. One of these was in 1943; Jean was charged with allowing a patron to consume liquor in a restaurant. When the charges came before a magistrate, the question arose as to whether 1124 ought to be regarded as an ‘unlicensed restaurant’ (as the VPD claimed) or as her home in which she served chicken dinners to friends (as Jean said). Ultimately the magistrate decided in favour of the VPD’s definition. But before he did so, Magistrate H. S. Wood “remarked [in court] that he had heard of the house but never had the pleasure of going there.” Jean replied: “I’ll gladly cook you a chicken dinner.” The magistrate didn’t indicate whether he’d accept Jean’s offer (Sun, 24 Apr 1943) – at least he didn’t so indicate during court proceedings!
Jean Weds Don Flynn
Jean married Don Flynn (1900-1948) in 1940. Don was another local musician who played piano in various bands in Vancouver from the 1920s. Don and Jean were a mixed race couple who married quite late in life (Jean was 43; Don 40).¹
Don was born in Mountain Station, ON and lived for some of his early years in Calgary. He tried to enlist in the Canadian armed forces in 1916, but was quickly discharged for lying about his age (he claimed he was born in 1897). He identified his occupation as early as age 16 as “musician”. It isn’t clear to me what Don was doing between 1916 and 1922, but he was in Vancouver by 1921. An ad in an issue of the Vancouver Daily World showed Don playing piano that year (with “Don Flynn’s Novelty Orchestra”) at the Patricia Dansant – a dance joint attached to the Patricia Hotel on East Hastings. The 1927 Vancouver Directory indicated Don spent at least part of that year playing at the Empress Theatre. And there is further evidence of that in an ad from the periodical of the BC musicians’ union; he was playing the Empress for awhile with Frank Maracci. But there is no mention of Don in directories again until 1935, where it was noted that he was playing at the Commodore Cabaret. In the early and mid-1940s, it looks like he played piano for the CPR Orchestra.
Life After Don
Don died very early and tragically in November 1948. His death certificate describes his death as being by “misadventure”; the principal cause of death was accidental poisoning by him consuming methyl alcohol. He was buried at Mountain View Cemetery.
The years of WWII seem to have been good years for Jean’s singing career. In December 1939, “the well-known Jeanie Fuller and her artists” provided entertainment at the Eburne Hotel for that year’s “New Year’s Frolic” (this may have been an early event which ultimately evolved into the “Screwball Frolic” events of the 1940s (Sun 28 Dec 1939). She had supporting roles in Theatre Under the Stars (TUTS) productions, such as “Hit the Deck” (Province, 11 Jul 1944) and in the mid- and late-1940s she sang at the Mandarin and Cave supper clubs.
Jean remained at 1124 Seymour after Don’s death through 1950. But in 1951, she moved to Suite #3 at 839 W Pender Street (the Massey Block – between Hornby and Howe). By 1954, Jean was still residing at 839 Pender, but she also was also proprietress of a short-lived entrepreneurial venture – an eatery called the “Jeannie Cafe” at 814 East Hastings. It didn’t seem to last for more than a year or so.
According to Ivan Ackery’s memoirs, Jean worked in her later life as ‘Aunt Jemima’ at the PNE and, finally, as a women’s room attendant at a local cabaret. He noted that she returned to “her home” in the States (to Texas, presumably) where she died “some years ago” – in the 1970s sometime, I assume, since Ackery’s memoirs were published in 1980. (Ackery, 120). (I could find no evidence to support Ackery’s claims about Jean’s later career, but I have always found the assertions in his memoirs to be accurate.)
Notes
¹Many thanks to Robert of WestEndVancouver for very tactfully making a couple of corrections to this post.
Demolishing The Party Bazaar (formerly IH’s HQ) on June 29, 2019. MDM photo.
The demolition of The Party Bazaar building this week, after 7 years at its Station Street location, made me wonder what other businesses had been in that building over the years.
In fact, few.
In 1950, the heavy truck manufacturing and retailing multinational, International Harvester of Canada, decided to establish its BC/Yukon headquarters at 1296 Station Street (adjacent to the CN Rail Depot; today, the long-distance bus/rail facility called Pacific Central Station). An artist’s conception of what IH’s new building would look like on completion appears below.
IH remained on the site from 1951 until the mid-1980s. After they moved out, the building didn’t have any occupants for a couple of years. Then, beginning in the early ’90s, BC Transit Security Services took at least some of the space. It isn’t clear to me how long they remained at Station Street, but sometime around 2012, The Party Bazaar moved in from their previous location near Olympic Village.
Artist’s Conception of the Completed IH Facility. Province, 15 April 1950.
The original International Harvester complex was a vast structure and it seems that in recent years, after IH’s exit from Station Street, it was thought prudent to slice the huge building into three smaller ones (see Google Street View image below). The Party Bazaar had the leftmost building, until recently. The other two buildings that are behind it are part of what was, in IH’s day, a single building.
Google Street View.
Crop of CVA 447-253. 1973. W E Frost. Showing part of International Harvester’s HQ just south of the CN Depot.
This business card was purchased recently from Vancouver ephemera collector, Rein Stamm. MDM Collection.
I love the scantily-clad, outrageous word play on this card!
Adam’s Rib (1047 Granville) was located on the west side of Granville Street, midway between Helmcken and Nelson. Specifically, it was between where “The Mexican” restaurant and the “Vietnamese Supermarket” are today, in a space that seems currently vacant. And for good reason — from the outside, it looks like a realtor’s nightmare.
It wasn’t the first or last cabaret to be at this location. It was preceded by the Italian Paradise Cabaret (1966-68) and (lasting just a few months) The Lantern Cabaret. Adam’s Rib endured from late in 1968 until sometime in 1974. It was succeeded by The Fox’s Den (1974-75) and The Windmill cabarets (1975-82; one of their early acts was the Asparagus Band!).
Vancouver Sun. 11 Dec 1968.
The ad at left was one of Adam’s Rib’s first. It strikes me as odd. They chose to play on their name, which derived from the biblical Book of Genesis, Chapter 2, in which the story of Eve’s creation from Adam’s rib is told (verses 21-23).¹ But I must say that the illustrated Adam and Eve look like they’ve seen better days (and after the ‘serpent’ was finished with them, I imagine they had). But I’m not convinced that showing Adam and Eve in this unattractive fashion, looking as though they’d just come off some ’60s bender, was the best way to persuade customers to venture into a new Cabaret.
It isn’t clear from the business card what the opening and closing times were. The card only shows when the Businessmen’s Luncheon ran: from Noon (presumably, although they used the less-than-conventional time form of ’12:00 a.m.’) until 4 p.m. To find out the general open hours I had to rely on another ad: “Dine and dance nightly 5pm to 2am.”
Sun. 22 Aug 1969.
What would have been the nature of the live entertainment at lunch and other times? It seems almost certain (judging from the none-too-veiled puns on the card) that there would have been women dancing, probably topless, although it isn’t clear to me from the little information available whether they would typically have peeled anything besides their tops.²
As far as I can tell, Adam’s Rib did not re-locate in Vancouver after closing at 1047 Granville.
CVA 1184-3471 – Board of Trade members watching a woman on stage at a Christmas in June luncheon at The Cave cabaret. 1948. Jack Lindsay photo. Note: Most men’s gazes are in a predictable direction!
Notes
¹”Adam’s Rib” was also the name of a hugely popular motion picture starring Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn (1949). There were other Adam’s Ribs both before and after this cabaret: the biblical story lent the name to a ’50s line of perfume by Lentheric; and in the mid-’70s, Woodward’s marketing department must have decided that there was money in the creation story: they flogged ‘Adam’s Rib’ towels and blouses.
²Stripping was part of the entertainment at several other night spots around the same period (notably, Isy’s Strip City and The Penthouse — the names say it all; and the State on Hastings in the ’50s with acts including Yvette Dare ‘and her sarong-stealing parrot’!) Oddly, whether a cabaret planned to include strippers as part of their entertainment seems to have had little impact on whether a cabaret was granted a license. Licensing was mainly about the booze.
The proposed Connaught Beach Club designed by McCarter & Nairne.
By Neil Whaley, Guest Blogger
English Bay’s Crystal Swimming Pool had its beginnings in a 1926 proposal for a private luxury facility called the Connaught Beach Club. That club was to have a pool, tennis courts, separate Turkish baths for men and women, a beauty parlor and barber shop, private and general dining rooms with meals prepared by a Parisian chef, a ballroom, and sleeping quarters (each with a private bath) for members and their out-of-town guests. The Vancouver public would be blocked from access to the private beach on the section of the land owned by the club.
The Connaught Beach Club evolved from a proposal for a hotel at English Bay. In 1926 a Los Angeles company wanted to build a 250 to 300-room hotel on Beach Avenue at Nicola. The project made progress after the Californians stepped to the background and Vancouver businessmen fronted the idea, led by Walter F. Evans, who had financial interests in a city music store and in the Devonshire Apartments. Honorary governors included mayor L.D. Taylor, premier John Oliver, Sun publisher R.J. Cromie, UBC chancellor Robert McKechnie and businessmen like Frank Begg of Begg Motors.
A page from a promotional brochure when the Connaught Beach Club was proposed.
The idea of a private beach had to be abandoned in order to get building approval from the city.
This 1929 Stuart Thomson photo shows the completed pool with chairs & ferns on balconies. With the chairs put aside, 500 spectators could watch swim meets. (City of Vancouver Archives CVA 99-2212.)
The Connaught Beach Club backers promoted the idea of an exclusive institution that would be a social benefit for the entire family. A promotional brochure said:
Membership taken out by the head of a family automatically makes that man’s wife and dependent sons and daughters members also, enjoying equally with him all the privileges of the Club. Every member of the family, therefore, gains the privileges of association in thought and play with the most desirable companionship in the community. Where whole families associate thus in pleasant and luxurious surroundings, impulses are generated, friendship are formed by the younger members, which influence their whole after lives. And in these times of startlingly advancing youth, the Connaught Beach Club is one place where parents, anxious to guide their children safely through the danger shoals of adolescence, may oversee the pleasures and social contacts of their children without curtailing, or seeming to curtail them.
City council approved the proposal on the condition that a 50-foot strip of beach remained accessible to the public. The salt water pool was the focus of the $60,000 first phase of construction, which started in autumn 1927 with completion expected by May 1928.The project ran into trouble. Construction stopped, the company was reorganized in July 1928 and the architectural plans were altered.
McCarter & Nairne drawing from a 1929 Sun newspaper, with ‘Crystal Swimming Pool’ on the building.
By the pool’s July 1929 opening, the Connaught name had been abandoned and the facility became the “semi-public” Crystal Pool. It offered a 100 by 30-foot pool, a lounge with deep pile rugs and comfortable chairs grouped around an open fireplace, a tea room for lunch, and dressing rooms with showers and a steam room. Ads promoted “dancing every night” with a live orchestra, until the city refused a permit. None of the Connaught’s other proposed facilities was ever built.
The business seems to have functioned routinely, although there were at least minor problems with the valves and technology which drew salt water from English Bay and heated it. The facility hosted swim meets, lifesaving courses, bridge tournaments and other social events.
Drownings and near-drownings in Vancouver waters were in the news in that period. The Crystal Pool promoted itself in a newspaper ad with the gruesome text: “Children and adults are safe in our warm sea-water swimming pool. Funerals are expensive – don’t take chances – buy a summer pass.” (I can only find the “funerals” ad published once. After that, ads mentioned safety but stopped short of alluding to the death of children.)
Fast forward to 1937. The owners were in tax arrears and offered to sell the pool to the city park board. Ratepayers approved $27,000 for the transaction in a 1939 plebiscite – then grew increasingly frustrated when the pool remained closed.
This heritage plaque (and most mentions on the internet) use a 1928 date for the Crystal Pool. Construction actually started in 1927 and problems delayed the opening until July 1929.
In late 1940, Park board chair R. Rowe Holland said an un-budgeted $15,000 was needed to repair the facility. Holland said the board had been interested in acquiring the property in its quest for an unbroken stretch of public waterfront, got it for less than expropriation would have cost and had only intended to operate the pool for a few years (which wasn’t mentioned at the time of the plebiscite). Mayor Lyle Telford wanted it to be clear that the closure wasn’t the city’s fault; the park board knew about the repair cost before the plebiscite. Once that information became public, the park board and city council worked quickly to fund the repairs, and the pool re-opened in April 1941.
I knew that Crystal Pool had a history of preventing Asians and blacks from swimming with whites, but I didn’t know that the policy only started immediately after the city took over operation of the facility. And I didn’t know that the black woman who went public after being turned away was one of the original shareholders when Crystal Pool bonds were sold in 1929.
The Aquatic Centre replaced the pool in May 1974 and the Crystal structure was demolished that year.
CVA 180-5042 – Jantzen Swimwear/Crystal Pool parade float, ca1928. Harry Bullen photo.
CVA 260-1136.1 – Men on a sailboat. ca1918 James Crookall photo.
This CVA image made by local amateur James Crookall strikes me as being an outstanding photograph.
It shows four men in a sailboat on relatively calm water. The gent with the cigar appears to be the eldest of the four — possibly the father. It is technically a very good photo. But there is something about it that rises above its technical competence.¹
This photo has an artistic element to it. It was made about 1918, two years before the Canadian artist, Alex Colville (1920-2013) was born. And yet, it seems to draw on Colville’s later brilliance at capturing the ordinary and then turning normal on its head by introducing a component of imminent danger.
I think this Crookall image has, in spades, all of what would later become Colville’s trademark qualities:
Only one face of the four is fully visible (the person farthest from the viewer);
The men seem to be doing ordinary tasks on a sail craft (the older man is fiddling with the rigging; the guy to his right seems to be at the wheel; the fellow at left, background is loafing; and the gent whose face we can see seems to be on lookout);
And yet, I don’t think I’m imagining the tension in this photo. The lookout guy isn’t positioned to be very effective at his job (assuming that I’ve got his job right): the orientation of the sails prevents him from seeing what lies in front of the craft! Furthermore, while I’ve deduced that the fellow at right front is at the wheel, there is no wheel to be seen. Both of these features create a tension in the viewer. I believe the blackness of the companionway between ‘father’ and ‘wheel guy’ reinforces it.
As my old friend Wes rightly remarked when I brought this image to his attention two years ago, “Of course, if it were a Colville, one of these fellas would be loading a revolver!”
¹There were three other images made by Crookall, evidently on the same day with the same subjects, but not one of the others approaches the quality of this one. For all four images, see here.
Crop of CVA – SGN 68 – Men standing with paint buckets and brushes outside J.C. Rowley Painter and Decorator, 508 West Pender Street. ca 1894. It isn’t clear to me which of these gents was Rowley (but if pressed, I’d say it was the gent third from left).
John Capper Rowley (1844-1941) was a real character who was a resident in Vancouver during its pioneering period! Born in Staffordshire, England, he was the son of a coach shop owner. He began a lifetime of wandering when in 1861 he left Staffordshire for London to find work as a house painter in and around the capital (his occupation, in a couple of records, is shown as painter and plumber, but I’ve seen no evidence to confirm that he ever practiced plumbing professionally).¹ A decade later, when he was about 27, he seems to have married Caroline.²
‘A Wandering Painter, He…’
In 1873, Rowley’s wandering spirit was given free reign when he and his wife boarded the Wild Duck, bound for New Zealand. Nearly 4 months after leaving England, they disembarked at Wellington, NZ. Rowley found work, not least winning a contract to paint the then-new ‘Old Government Buildings‘ in Wellington, then and now the ‘largest wooden building in the southern hemisphere’.
In 1876, Rowley spent some time in Australia (Melbourne and Tasmania), although it isn’t clear whether his wife accompanied him on this less ambitious journey or remained in Wellington. Sometime after his Australian venture, he planned to return to England, but ended up in Cape Town, South Africa where presumably he found painting work aplenty. By 1881, he had returned to NZ, settling in what today is described as a ‘village of Auckland’, Devonport.
Vancouver
He left NZ again in 1887, in search of a better economic situation than was then present in his adoptive nation. This time, he set off for the west coast of British North America, to the freshly minted city of Vancouver.
The first mention of Rowley in the local press was in an ad placed by him in December 1888 seeking staff for his painting business. “None but good hands need apply,” it said, and was signed “J. C. Rowley, Hastings” (Daily World, 20 Dec 1888).³ There is evidence in B.C. provincial government records of the same year that Rowley did work on new school buildings in the city. By 1890, his painting business appears to have been headquartered at 104 Hamilton, near Hastings, close to what would become the city’s heart.
In 1893, Rowley moved his Vancouver business to the location shown in the photo above, at 508 Pender. His business remained there, as far as I can tell, until 1894. In that year, he was a sub-contractor on the job of painting (presumably) the Inns of Court building nearby his former business site at SW corner of Hamilton and Hastings. Also in that year, BC government records show that he billed the Province for $9,300+ (well in excess of $200,000 in today’s dollars) for work he did on the then-new Parliament Buildings in Victoria. By 1895, Rowley was living on Pacific near Burrard.
At the end of 1895, J. C. Rowley vanished!
On January 25, 1896, a legal notice appeared in the Daily World. The notice declared that the Hon. William Norman Bole of the Supreme Court of B.C. had found J. C. Rowley to be “an absconding debtor”. The creditor who had pushed for Rowley to be so identified was Vancouver Sash and Door Co. (located at north end of Granville St. Bridge).
The Absconding Debtors Act was legislation which provided a way for creditors to lay hands, legally, upon a debtor’s property remaining in the province after he’d left with debt unpaid. In the case of Rowley, he’d not only left the province, but the country and it seems doubtful, to me, that the owners of Vancouver Sash and Door ever got the satisfaction of laying hands on the debt Rowley owed them. I don’t know which ship he boarded, but Rowley made his way back to New Zealand. He picked up the house painting business again there. He lived in various suburbs of Auckland after retiring in 1902 and died there in 1941.
Notes
¹Many thanks to Robert of the WestEndVancouver blog for his generous research assistance with this post — especially with Rowley’s life in New Zealand.
²Whether JCR married one woman named Caroline or two remains an open question. Rowley seems to have married a woman called Caroline (pre-married surname is unknown) in 1871 and Rowley evidently boarded the Wild Duck with a woman identified as “Caroline J. Rowley” in 1873. But there is also evidence of him marrying someone identified as “Caroline Makepeace Rowley” in 1903. Caroline Makepeace died on May 5, 1927. It could be that the woman who boarded the Wild Duck with Rowley was his wife in all but the legal details and that he delayed “making an honest woman of her” until 1903. Or there could have been two wives and either he and his first wife parted company, or she died and he married someone of the same first name in 1903.
On a related note, Rowley, in a published profile of his life in the New Zealand press, claimed that he “has no descendants”. But there is evidence that that may have been a porky. In 1894, one Louisa Swindell published a request in Reynolds’s newspaper seeking information on her father, J. C. Rowley, “house painter and plumber” who left Staffordshire in 1871. (Reynolds’s Newspaper, 3 June 1894).
³Hastings at the time was described in the 1888 Williams Directory as “situate on the south side of the Inlet, three miles from Vancouver by a good road, and is connected with New Westminster and Vancouver by the C. P. Railway. It is the ‘Brighton’ of the Mainland and the fashionable resort for visitors especially during the sumer months. The ‘Brighton’ Hotel is one of the best and most popular hotels on the Mainland.” Whether Hastings townsite was ever considered a ‘fashionable resort’ seems to me to be open to question.
Gordon Poppy Collection. Digital copy made from GP’s original slides. “The Lion’s Snored in ’54” Display Window for T. Eaton Company. The Lion is apparently in traction! Vancouver. 1954.
This post is a fun excuse to show off a few of Gordon Poppy’s photos of a window display he helped set up for the Vancouver flagship store of T. Eaton Company (at the time, from 1949-1973, in the former Spencer’s Department Store space on West Hastings between Seymour and Richards).
The B.C. Lions football club had been expected to do well in 1954 (unreasonably, probably). So well, in fact, that their public relations machine had ground out the slogan that “The Lions ROAR in ’54“. Annis Stukus (1914-2006) had recently been imported from the ‘near east’ as the first head coach and general manager of the Leos. And the Lions would play home games at the brand-new British Empire Games Stadium, adjacent to Hastings Park. (There was a connection between the Spenser family and the Lions and the Empire Games being hosted by Vancouver. Victor Spenser (1924-2015), a son of store founder, David Spenser, was a key lobbyist for both.)
Gordon Poppy Collection. Digital copy made from GP’s original slides. “The Lion’s Snored in ’54” Display Window for T. Eaton Company. Vancouver. A dejected fan sitting on the foot of the Lion’s sickbed. 1954.
But victorious roaring was not to happen that year; in fact, it would be another decade before they would win the Grey Cup. Their win:loss ratio in 1954 was 1:15 and by October they were finally knocked out of contention for the finals by the Winnipeg Blue Bombers.
This ditty appeared in the Calgary Herald in October 1954; it seems to me to be written for singing to the tune of The Band Played On:
Benson would walk through a shuddering line
And the Lions snored on.
He’d glide ’round the ends with the greatest of ease,
And the Lions snored on.
His team was so loaded, it nearly exploded,
The half backs would shake with alarm.
He’d ne’er leave the field ’till the game was on ice.
And the Lions snored on.
Calgary Herald. 25 Oct 1954
Speaking of Lions ditties – unofficial and otherwise – I’ve recently learned that the official ‘fight song’ of the Leos is “Roar You Lions, Roar“, composed by none other than local Big Band great, Dal Richards (1918-2015). Give it a listen. The lyrics are pretty predictable, but – as such music goes – it is quite tune-full.
Gordon Poppy Collection. Digital copy made from GP’s original slides. “The Lion’s Snored in ’54” Display Window for T. Eaton Company. Vancouver. Two apparently dejected female fans visible (one on foot of sickbed; the other seated on the floor). 1954.
Thanks to a 2012 publication by Michael Windover, Art Deco: A Mode of Mobility (Québec : Presses de l’Université du Québec), I have learned that the mural on the wall shown below (with a deco-style airplane and ocean liner at left; an Americas-centric map of the world in centre; and what appears to me to be a rendering of Vancouver Harbour Commission Grain Elevator #1 – or perhaps the Alberta Wheat Pool elevator – in East Vancouver at right) was the creation of L. J. (Louis James) Trounce (1885-1963). Trounce was born in Saskatoon and by the 19-teens, had moved to Vancouver, where he founded the L. J. Trounce School of Show Card Writing (which I take to be what we’d call business advertising postcards, today). After serving in the Great War, he returned to Vancouver where he was a local artist (he described his career in these years as “designer”) in the 1920s and ’30s — there is evidence that he worked as an instructor at the Vancouver School of Decorative and Applied Arts in these early years (Sun 28 Jun 1926) — and as an advertising man/commercial artist by the ’50s. He was married to Eleanor Kate Trounce (1882-1970).
We are also able to pinpoint the location of the Merchants Exchange more accurately, thanks to Vancouver Public Library’s collection of Leonard Frank photos. Here is Frank’s photo of the main floor plan:
VPL 12016 First floor plan of Marine Building. Nov 1931. Leonard Frank photo.
The Exchange was located, in fact, on the northern wall (in the NW corner) of the Marine Building. Windover describes the location of the mural and clock as being on the eastern wall of the Exchange. All of these details better conform to the location, size and configuration of the windows in the photo shown below. In my original post, I had the Exchange (mistakenly) located where the “Shipping Office” is on the floor plan above.
Interior of the Vancouver Grain Exchange in the Marine Building at 355 Burrard Street. 1930s. Frank Leonard photo. (UBC Rare Books and Special Collections – MacMillan Bloedel Limited Fonds. Identifier: RBSC-ARC-1343-BC-1930-575-1).
This is an amazing photo that has been ‘hiding’ within UBC’s Rare Books and Special Collections under a mistaken identity for an unknown period.¹ The building that housed this space (Marine Building) is extant but, sadly, virtually none of the art deco features that appear in the image above remain.
The photo shows the Vancouver Grain Exchange — a division of the Merchants’ Exchange — which, before the Marine Building opened at 355 Burrard Street, was a few blocks east of there at 815 West Hastings. By 1930, however, the Exchange moved into the Marine Building.
In a 2011 article on the Marine Building, John Mackie of the Vancouver Sun noted:
An extensive $17-million renovation was carried out from 1982-89 to update the electrical, mechanical and air-conditioning systems. Heritage activists were not pleased with some of the renovations, such as replacing with marble the lobby’s original multi-coloured ‘battleship linoleum,’ which had been imported from Scotland. The former Merchant Exchange was also gutted and changed into the Imperial restaurant favoured by an elite clientele (the Rolling Stones like to eat there when they’re in town). But the Merchant Exchange’s signature mural of the world was destroyed in the conversion, and its beautiful floor covered up when it was raised so diners could take advantage of the room’s huge windows.”
Vancouver Sun, 31 March 2011
Smirking whale being hunted by Vikings. Tile work in lobby of Marine Building.
There are many aspects of the photo to love. To identify just a few: the mural of the world map (I’m especially partial to the whale figures near the bottom of the mural; they remind me of the smirking whale engraved into the tile in the Marine’s lobby), the swirly light fixtures, the fluted clock (and columns), the plaster detailing on the ceiling, the ‘korkoid’ floor with the ‘compass rose’ in the design, and the metal work on the mezzanine.
As Mackie pointed out, most of the deco features of the former Vancouver Grain Exchange were lost during the ’80s demolition/renovation. The former Grain Exchange office seems today to be out-of-bounds, under lease by another tenant.
Notes
¹The photo was titled “The reception area of the Canadian Transport Company Limited, Vancouver, B.C.?” I checked the address of the CTC; it was at the Metropolitan Building in the ’30s. That was a nice building, but not anywhere near as nice as the building shown in the photo. That is what started me digging. I discovered a photo with many features identical to those in the ‘CTC’ image in a book of Frank Leonard photos, “An Enterprising Life” (by Cyril E. Leonoff), page 155. It was that image which began to reveal the actual tenant (the Grain Exchange) and its landlord (the Marine Building). One other related image was likewise ‘hiding’ at UBC’s site: it shows the same space, but the photographer’s back is to the clock. It is here.
CVA 1184-2842 – Vancouver switchboard operators for BC Tel, ca 1940-48, Jack Lindsay photo. The transition to “automatic” dialing in different areas of Vancouver led to the end and start of numerous exchanges from 1939 to the mid-1950s. The project was barely complete when everything changed again with the switch to 7-digit numbers. To accommodate continent-wide direct dialing of long distance numbers, every number in the city was changed to 7 digits between 1956 and 1960 (and into the ’60s for some surrounding communities). The 604 area code was introduced in 1957 and direct dialing began in select BC cities in 1961.
By Neil Whaley, Guest Blogger
I collect vintage Vancouver items and I like to be able to pin down the date they were created as accurately as possible. Phone numbers on items are helpful; many telephone exchanges in Vancouver existed only for a certain number of years, so they can provide a useful date range.
I was surprised that there wasn’t a list of phone exchange dates online, so I started compiling an ad hoc list. Then I looked at antique shows for issues of the BC Tel employee publication called Telephone Talk, which had news about ‘cutovers’ as one exchange closed and a new exchange replaced it. Eventually, someone mentioned to me that UBC’s Rare Books and Special Collections division in the Irving K. Barber Library has a complete collection of Telephone Talk (1911-1961). I sat in UBC’s library for days until I had gone through every issue. Newspaper articles and BC Tel phone books helped fill in remaining gaps, and I could be satisfied that I had accurate information for all exchanges up to 1965.
Here are the dates of local telephone exchanges:
A Few Notes on Exchanges
If no telephone exchange is shown with a number, a phone number from the City of Vancouver (not the suburbs) is from before June 1911; that was the time that a second exchange was introduced in Vancouver. Before that, there was just one unnamed exchange. The Seymour equipment was in use for years before June 1911, but it didn’t get the Seymour name until there was more than one exchange.
An R-F number is the Douglas exchange in 1920. It was called R-F for a few months before being renamed Douglas.
A single letter before numbers is how Vancouver two-party and four-party shared lines were written until June 1911; after that, party lines were shown as one letter after the number.
The first two letters of an exchange represent numbers on a rotary telephone’s dial. For example, MNO is 6 and TUV is 8, so MUtual 1-6437 is 681-6437. (For a few early exchanges, letters don’t match numbers. This is the case mainly in the suburbs).
A Vancouver number as short as “Seymour 3” existed until 1939. Numbers as long as “Seymour 8585” existed as early as 1911.
Vancouver had no 7-digit numbers before 1956; the entire city was 7-digit by late 1960.
The first two letters of an exchange were often emphasized in print; for example, Bayview might be written BAyview or BA.
Beginning in the early 1960s, BC Tel gradually discontinued the practice of writing the first two numbers as letters. The 1966 phone book was the first one to use only numbers. Some businesses continued to write their phone numbers in the old-fashioned way, but it is likely that any document showing letters as part of a phone number is from before 1970.
‘Telephone Talk’ Anecdotes
A few surprising stories surfaced while I was working through Telephone Talk looking for exchange info:
Vancouver had phones from its earliest days. When the three-month-old city suffered the Great Fire in 1886, phone lines outside the fire zone were used to make arrangements for relief.
When U.S. President Warren Harding visited Vancouver in 1923, BC Tel pre-arranged with U.S. phone companies that Harding would be able to reach Washington, DC. BC Tel proudly reported that when a call was placed in Vancouver, it took only 20 minutes to connect to Washington.
When transatlantic long distance service was launched in 1928 — at a time when a Coca-Cola cost a nickel — a call from Vancouver to London, England cost $57 for the first three minutes, $19 for each additional minute, and $5 if the party could not be reached.
Newspaper photos were transmitted through phone lines (or ‘wired’) directly from Vancouver for the first time in 1939 during the Royal Visit of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth (the current Queen’s mother). Prior to that, photos were mailed to a Seattle transmitter station.
CVA 180-1219 – BC Tel exhibit on how the dial telephone functions, 1941. PNE photo. The Marine telephone exchange was the first exchange (1939) to enable Vancouverites to dial local calls themselves instead of using an operator. BC Tel explained the new system at the 1941 PNE. “Automatic” dialling had been in place in Chilliwack, Aldergrove and Victoria since 1929-30 but the Great Depression delayed its introduction in the City of Vancouver.
This is just a line to accompany the images of the portraits shown above. It was learned this week that these six images of UBC faculty and officials (which had been shown in UBC’s Archival Collections as painted by “unknown” in an “unknown” year were in fact painted by Charles Comfort (1900-1994) in 1954. Comfort was brought to the west coast by UBC (he was professor of art and archeology at the University of Toronto at the time) for 10 weeks of painting these portraits in oils (Sun, 19 Aug 1954).
CVA 99-1955 – Dr. R.E. McKecknie (UBC’s second Chancellor, 1918-1944) being ‘tagged’ on tag day at UBC in 1929 (beyond the time frame of the tags included in this post). The tags in this photo appear to be early poppies, possibly for November 11th, Armistice Day (today, Remembrance Day). Stuart Thomson photo.
— By Neil Whaley, Guest Blogger
‘Tag days’ were one-day fundraisers held in Vancouver before, during and after WW1. Volunteers canvassed on street corners for a particular cause, and donors received a tag on a string they could wear around a button to show that they had done their part.
The tags shown in this post were found together and look to be from Vancouver circa WW1. The ones which can be more precisely dated are 1916-18.
Vancouver’s first tag day was held in 1902 and by WW1 there were about a dozen tags a year. Their popularity exploded during the Great War — 33 tags in 1917 raised $124,000 and 37 tags in 1918 raised $105,000. Tag days dropped to six a year by 1923 but continued for decades, eventually morphing into tagless poppy days (Canadian Legion) apple days (Kinsmen) and carnation days (Lions).
The volunteer labor to run tag days was overwhelmingly female, even when the benefactor was an all-male group. Newspapers ran long lists naming each canvasser and her street corner. One rare time in 1916 when a significant number of canvassers were male, organizers offered prizes — kids were canvassers and the boy with the highest donation total won a bicycle (which would have been a big prize at the time), the second highest boy got a wristwatch and the top girl got an umbrella. I bet she would have preferred a chance at the bike.
City Council had to approve each event, and generally rejected political causes. Vancouver Island coal mine strikers in 1913 were forbidden to canvas to get workers out of jail but were allowed to have a tag day to support the jailed unionists’ destitute wives and children. In the 1930s, unemployed men were turned down for a tag to fund the On to Ottawa Trek but a leftists theatre group got a tag to finance a trip to Ottawa to perform “Waiting for Lefty” in the Dominion Drama Festival.
The quantity of tags printed ranged from 15,000 to 175,000, and was typically 50,000. Donations were often 10 cents, and it was not unusual to raise $3000.
In 1916, Vancouver’s Nicholson Printers advertised that they could print a two-colour tag on both sides with rounded corners and a string hole, all in a single pass through the press.
Most (if not all) of the tags shown below are from before spring 1919, when at least one printer started offering a tag with a buttonhole slit so that no string was needed. Before then, volunteers spent hours adding the strings.
The tags were found glued to black pages.
Belgium Relief tag days were held in 1916, ’17, and ’18.
Serbia July 21, 1917: A tag for Serbian relief was held in Vancouver that day.
Italia: Italian Red Cross tags were held in 1916, ’17, and ’18.
VGH Infants Hospital Save the Babies: “‘Save the Babies’ is a motto of the Infants Hospital Committee which will make its public appeal on Saturday when a tag day is to be held to provide . . . for furnishing with needed linen and blankets the hospital on Haro Street, where the little ones that are too ‘seeck’ to be taken home by their mothers are tenderly nursed back to health and strength . . . The hospital is a public institution, one of the branches of the Vancouver General Hospital . . . and its continued and efficient existence is necessary if all that is possible is to be done to conserve human life in Vancouver to make up for the terrible losses sustained beyond the seas” (Vancouver World newspaper, Oct 8 1918).
The first tag day for the Infants Hospital was in 1918 and others were held after the war.
Vancouver BC Children’s Home: Vancouver held tags before, during, and after WW1 for three organizations that operated children’s homes: the Children’s Aid Society, the Catholic Children’s Aid Society, and the Alexandra Orphanage. The color and shape of this tag are consistent with the Catholic group’s “Shamrock” tag day, which was held each year near St. Patrick’s Day.
United Auxiliaries: United Auxiliaries only tag day was in 1918. Auxiliaries of various battalions raised money for soldiers comforts for: University Battalion, Seaforths, 29th Battalion, Forestry Battalion, 158th Battalion, 7th Battalion, 68th Battery and Engineers. “Comforts” was a common term for such items as tobacco, food, rubber boots, and hand-knit gloves, scarves, and sleeping helmets.
Prisoners of War: A Prisoner of War tag day was held on Oct 6 1916. Felix Penne wrote a poem for that day’s World newspaper to encourage people to give. The poem said the event was using a “little tag that is shaped like a loaf of bread”.
Hart McHarg Auxiliary Soldiers Comforts: “Those who gave a contribution on Hart McHarg day will be interested to know what has already been done with the money. It is only two weeks since tag day, but the Auxiliary has already purchased comforts and filled 1200 boxes for the men of British Columbia battalions at the front . . .” (Vancouver World, Sept 25 1918). The auxiliary was named after a Lieutenant-Colonel from Vancouver who was killed in battle in 1915 at Ypres.
Jewish War Sufferers: “The committee in charge of the tag day for relief of Jewish sufferers report an exceptionally busy day . . . Out of 15,000 tags, there were only 1,500 in stock at noon . . . The tags, badges, and boxes all bear the Shield of David with the words ‘Jewish War Sufferers’ inscribed.” (Vancouver World Sept 15 1917), A tag day was also held in 1915 to aid four to five million Jews suffering or made homeless in Russia and Poland as a result of the war.
Alexandra Non-sectarian Orphanage: The orphanage opened in Vancouver in 1892. It held annual tag days from 1918 onward.
Help Red Cross Today: Red Cross tags were numerous during WW1.
Food for our Prisoners of War: Tag days were held in 1915-18 to fund food parcels for BC soldiers who were PoWs in German camps.
Vive la France: Tags for the French Red Cross were held 1916-19.
Vancouver Sailors’ Home: The British and Foreign Sailors Society held a tag day in 1917 for a Sailors’ Home on Alexandra Street. Shown on the tag is Admiral David Beatty, who became commander-in-chief of the British Grand Fleet in late 1916 and served as vice-president of the British and Foreign Sailors Society.
M.A.M.W.S.S. Boys Comforts: The Mainland Association of Mothers and Wives of Soldiers and Sailors of the Army and Navy held their only tag in 1918. In addition to providing “comforts” for soldiers, the group “was instrumental in securing the release from the army of a few soldiers whose wives had died during their absence, leaving children to be cared for.”
Our Red Cross Day and Red Cross Material Fund: Before and after the war, a local organization would hold no more than one tag day a year. The exception was the Red Cross during WW1, which was allowed to hold tag days as frequently as six weeks apart.
Our Blinded Heroes: “The tag that will be used in Saturday’s collection for the blinded men of St. Dunstan’s Hostel has been specially designed by Miss Nan Miller, who has expressed artistically and with dignity the raison d’etre of the collection. Encircled by a wealth of laurels are a pyramid of canon balls and two pieces of field artillery, above which the words ‘Our Blinded Heroes’ are boldly inscribed. The design in black shows very effectively on a small colored card. Miss Miller is to be congratulated on her very artistic work” (Vancouver World June 15 1917). St. Dunstan’s was a facility in London, England.
Shell Shock Installation: “The Great War Veterans’ Tag Day on Saturday is one which should appeal to each and every person in Vancouver. The proceeds of this tag day will pay for the installation of ‘shell shock machinery’ in a wing of the Vancouver General Hospital to be called the Military Hospital. There are many returned heroes who will benefit by this apparatus . . . .” (Vancouver World Sept 21 1917). VGH’s new wing was created without government funding after private citizens raised $75,000. The tag was held to raise $3000 to install hydro-therapy equipment.
Victorian Order of Nurses, St. Paul’s Hospital, SPCA, and Catholic Children’s Aid (CCA): Military charities drew money away from regular annual tag days for local organizations. Of 33 tags in 1917 for all causes, the SPCA attracted the lowest total, $1400.
Vancouver General Hospital: VGH held the city’s first ever tag in 1902. The annual event was known as Hospital Saturday, an idea borrowed from “the old country”. Local Chinese and Japanese had a reputation for giving generously to it, even though VGH segregated Asian patients in the hospital basement at the time. For the earliest Hospital Saturdays, street canvassing was supplemented by donation cans that were left in saloons for a day. Although saloons had a tawdry reputation, saloonkeepers were portrayed as good citizens for their promise to do all they could to see that donations were strong.
For a few years until 1916, donors for the VON’s “Rose Day” received hand-crafted paper roses instead of tags.
Our Sailors: Tag days were held in 1916, ’17, and ’18 for “Our Sailors”.
Army Chaplain’s Emergency Fund: December 1917 tag day
Help Red Cross Today: Numerous tags were held for the Red Cross during WW1.
Returned Soldiers Club: “Miss Nan Miller has designed a very distinctive tag for next Saturday’s collection in aid of the Returned Soldier’s Club. On a primrose-colored card a black shield serves effectively as the background for a bayonet surmounted by a victor’s crown — the bayonet being emblematic of the fighting at close grips, so characteristic of the great war. The nationality of our soldiers is symbolized by maple leaves and above the script ‘Returned Soldiers Club’ a Victoria Cross and a Military Cross appear in token of the glory with which our forces have covered themselves on the battlefields of France and Belgium” (Vancouver World, Nov 22 1917).
Nan R. Miller was a teacher at Braemar private girls’ school before heading an 18-person staff which taught wood-carving, basket-weaving, embroidery and leatherwork to soldiers convalescing at local military hospitals. Needlework was said to soothe soldiers’ nerves.
YMCA Military Department: The Military Department of the YMCA held tags in 1916 and ’17. Money was raised to help ordinary Canadian “rankers” overseas as well as in training camps from Victoria to Halifax. In 1919, the department opened Red Triangle Club on Cordova Street to temporarily house 180 returnees at a time, serve meals and provide recreational activities. The department also handled recreation at various local military hospitals.
Central City Mission: Tag days were held 1917-19. Central City Mission started as an interdenominational organization to provide food and lodging to destitute men. Shown on the tag is 233 Abbott Street, its home from 1910-1989. When BC undertook Prohibition in 1917, the mission sought to provide more of a social venue. Today’s Central City provides social housing, addiction treatment, health care and youth services.
Patriotic Guild Sock Fund: “The proceeds of the tag day . . . of the Women’s Patriotic Guild will be used entirely to buy a supply of socks to be sent directly to the Canadian soldiers in France. The guild is the parent, so to speak, of several well organized leagues, the membership of which is made up exclusively of the wives and dependants of men of the military and naval forces, their meetings being held solely in the interest of Red Cross and soldiers’ comfort work . . . . During the three years of its existence the Women’s Patriotic Guild has mainly concerned itself with the interests and welfare of soldiers’ dependants and families, varying its function as circumstances changed the needs . . .” (Vancouver World Oct 20 1917).
Army Chaplain’s Emergency Fund: December 1917 tag day.
Our Sailors: Tag days were held in 1916, ’17 and ’18 for “Our Sailors”.
Vive la France: Some of the most successful WW1 tag days were for the French Red Cross. The 1917 day raised $6588, double what tags often raised at the time. Of 33 tags that year, the French drew the second highest response. Only Vancouverites’ outpouring of support for victims of the unparalleled Halifax Explosion exceeded it, raising $8400 to be sent to Nova Scotia.
Returned Soldiers Club: The Returned Soldiers Club was one of the few local WW1 organizations which continued after the war — it was still operating into the 1960s. The club held tags from 1917 to at least 1923.
Its original purpose when formed in December 1915 was to provide aid to soldiers and sailors who were returning from battle in Europe. Returnees were offered one week’s free accommodation, subsidized meals, job placement assistance, emergency funding and social activities including free billiards. All were welcomed: Vancouverites (including wives and kids), men passing through on their way to BC towns and soldiers from other countries.
St. Paul’s Hospital: St. Paul’s held annual tag days from 1916 onward.
Overseas Nurses Fund: “The Local Council of Women has organized a tag day for nurses who have become ill or unfit for further duty while serving in overseas hospitals. Many nurses have been caring for the sick and wounded of all nationalities for two or three years, giving not only their time and strength, but often providing much needed comforts or necessities from their own purses . . . The public will be asked to show its appreciation of the noble work these women are doing” (Vancouver World, Aug 6 1918).
Our Sailors: Tag days were held in 1916, ’17, and ’18 for “Our Sailors”.
French Red Cross Society: Tag day was held in 1916.
Plaid & Union Jack: There is more than one possibility for these two.
When a tag day drew a stronger-than-expected response, “hurry up orders were sent to printers to print flags or any old thing that would answer the purpose . . . ” (Vancouver World, May 15, 1915).
The plaid swatch appears to be the Seaforth Highlanders’ tartan. Seaforth cadets held a tag in 1916 to buy uniforms.
There was a tag day variation called Flag Day, where the International Order of the Daughters of the Empire (IODE) sold large and small Union Jacks near July 1 to encourage people to decorate their homes with full-size flags or wear the smaller version.
CVA 259-1: B.C. Miners Liberation League tag day outside Labour Temple, 1913.
Like me, you may never have heard of the Delmonico Cafe. It was on the south side of Robson Street ‘just a whisper [west of] Granville’ (to borrow from one of their slogans) for scarcely six years. In its brief life, it had its own taxi service, it offered an only-Chinese-food menu in an upstairs dining room, and there were rumours (this was never advertised) of Del’s catering to those who wanted a helping of jailhouse dress-up with their ‘meat, spuds, and veg’!
Crop of CVA 99-5191 – I’m pretty cetain that this is Cy Switzer, one of Delmonico Cafe’s owners.
Del’s opened in 1915 with two owners: Harry D. Reckner and Ervin “Cy” Switzer. Within a year of opening, however, Reckner sold his interest in the cafe. Reckner was originally from California. He’d settled in Vancouver for about three years, but by 1916 had been offered a job in Los Angeles that appealed to him (Sun. 1 Feb 1916). Whether the job in L.A. materialized or not isn’t clear. In any event, in 1918 he died.
It isn’t clear whether Reckner sold his interest to Switzer or to someone else. But Switzer did his best to imply that he’d bought Reckner’s share in the business; before long, there were references in cafe ads to Switzer being the ‘sole owner and manager’ and to the cafe being ‘Cy Switzer’s place’. It’s unclear whether Switzer was telling ‘porkies’ pertaining to the ownership of Del’s in the immediate post-Reckner period. But when the business was ultimately sold in the early ’20s, there were apparently two partners: Cy Switzer’s business partner at that time, it turned out, was also his life partner, wife Jessie Switzer (nee Allard).
In April 1917, Switzer got a building permit from the City so that work could be done on the cafe. Changes included, according to an ad in the Sun, a larger kitchen and new appliances.
Within two months of the announcement of the overhaul of Del’s, an ad appeared in local papers that surprised me and may well have surprised some of Switzer’s contemporaries:
The Orpheum Cafe
Takes pleasure in announcing to the Cafe-going public that Mr. E. (Si) Switzer (formerly of the Delmonico Cafe) has taken charge as floor manager of this cafe and will be pleased to meet his many friends and regular patrons. Si promises you the highest speed consistent with first-class service.
Meet me face-to-face at Vancouver’s Leading Cafe — THE ORPHEUM — Si.
Sun. 7 June 1917.
This announcement was odd.
It created the impression that Switzer abandoned his ownership of the Delmonico Cafe to assume the ‘floor managership’ of the Orpheum Cafe on a permanent basis. There are a couple of hints at this in the ad’s language: (1) that Switzer was “formerly of the Delmonico”; and (2) that the Orpheum was described in this ad as “Vancouver’s Leading Cafe” – a slogan which formerly had been associated with the Delmonico.
And yet, the April news of Switzer’s renovation work on the Delmonico created a strong impression that the Del would be out of commission for only a relatively brief time. And so it was. Two months, in fact.
By 18 June 1917, the Delmonico was advertising that “All the Old Help is Back: Old-Time Service. Old-Time Eats. ‘Cy’ Switzer, Sole Owner and Manager.”
1917 at the Del remains a head-scratcher for me!
Sun. 22 March 1919.
By 1919, the print ads published by the Delmonico in local newspapers had changed. In the cafe’s early years, the ads typically had only the barest, sparest language — just the minimum required to entice hungry stomachs into his shop. With the physical renovation behind him, Switzer seemed to give himself permission to create (or have created by a professional copywriter) more wordy ads. Ads that told a story. The one shown at left seems to me to be one of the first of this more prosaic type. This one has a very ‘folksy’ feel to me. I don’t know if you remember the TV ads in which the spokesman for Woodward’s Food Floors used to be featured. To me, if ‘Delmonico’s’ was replaced with ‘Woodward’s Food Floor’, this ad might well have served as copy for him to read in his TV spots. The Save-on-Foods ‘Darrell’ ads, today, are much the same.
In 1920, Cy Switzer, established a taxi service called “Delmonico’s Taxi” that was based at the cafe. Switzer was the owner of the taxi company for its first year in business. However, by 1921, presumably having found running a cafe and a taxi service to be a bit taxing, he sold the taxi biz to a chap called Earl Morrison. Delmonico Taxi survived the demise of Delmonico Cafe, but only just. By 1926, the taxi service ‘faded to black’.
In 1920, Switzer launched one of his most ambitious changes to the cafe: the creation of a Chinese food dining room upstairs from the main dining area. He called the new sub-restaurant Delmonico Topside (a bit of word-play; the pidgin English word for ‘upstairs’ is ‘topside’). I’ve included two of the Topside ads in the PDF document showing samples of Del’s ads over the years. I didn’t include the ad shown below in that document, however.
Sun. 27 June 1920.
The ‘voice’ in this ad isn’t folksy (nor is it Wodehouse-Woosterish, as is at least one of the Topside ads included in the attached PDF). To my ear, this ad generates the impression of a genial, sophisticated friend who wants to let you (the reader) in on some of his worldly, cultural knowledge. My 21st century eyes are offended by reference to the Chinese chef, Sun Fong, as being an “honest-to-joss Chinaman” and to the so-called ‘Chinese idiom’. But it’s unlikely that those aspects of the ad would have troubled many readers in the ’20s.
I wasn’t sure where to put this next Delmonico’s feature in this roughly chronological history of the cafe because I don’t know when it was established. Indeed, if it weren’t for a sentence in a somewhat gossipy column in the Province in 1963, I’d be unlikely to know anything about it. So here goes:
….[d]o you recall the old Delmonico Cabaret upstairs where the booths were made like cells and the waiters wore prison uniforms?
Province. 2 Nov 1963.
Yup, that’s it! I have nothing to add to the above!
In January, 1922, many of the cooks and waiters at the Delmonico downed tools and smocks and walked away. They brought suit (and won) against Cy and Jessie Switzer for back-wages. The Del’s furniture was ordered sold at auction to help recover the wages.
A “New Delmonico Cafe” was established shortly after. It was owned by A. Marano, A. Ritenti and H. Christen¹ and managed by Alfonso ‘Frenchy’ Moreno (Sun. 10 Dec 1921), a former waiter at the ‘old’ cafe. The NDC lasted longer than many may have anticipated. It was still serving meals into the late ’30s. It seems not to have survived the second world war, however.
This post relies almost exclusively on information mined from ads published in local newspapers by the Delmonico Cafe. So I’ve published a supplemental PDF along with this post to show a few of those ads. I think that, for the most part, they make ‘jolly good’ reading (if you’ll pardon the lapse into Woosterism)! Delmonico Cafe Advertisements
Notes
¹Thanks to Robert Moen of WestEndVancouver for identifying the proprietors of the New Delmonico and his correction of an image shown initially in this post which I thought showed the (SW) corner where the Delmonico Cafe once was, but which actually showed the NE corner of Robson at Granville. The mistaken image has now been removed.
CVA 586-8845. December 14, 1948. Don Coltman photo.
I’ve intentionally not shown a caption description of the location of the above image. I’d like you to study the photo and take your best guess as to which block is shown here.
Okay, ready?
It is the east side of the 300 block of Seymour Street. None of the buildings shown are extant. Most of that block today is the foundation of Harbour Centre tower (with an entry to the mini-mall/food court and a donut shop being the sole relief from a concrete wall, today).
The date the image was made was December 14, 1948. All of the buildings on the block bounded by this street (Seymour), Cordova, Richards, and Hastings had been the property of David Spencer’s department stores for many years until just a few weeks before this image was made.
Late in 1948, T. Eaton Co. had purchased the Spencer’s store at this location, as well as its other properties in B.C. It seems to me probable that Don Coltman, a local pro photographer, was retained by Eaton’s to produce a photographic record of the downtown Vancouver store’s exterior at the time of purchase.¹
So what are the buildings in this image of long-gone Seymour?²
The building at far left housed the shipping and receiving dock (that helps explain the presence of multiple trucks in the area). Presumably, there were other departments housed in this building over the years. Customers who wished to access that part of the store would likely enter from the rear off Cordova.
The wee Greco-Roman building in the middle was the only building in the Spencer’s/Eaton’s complex that was not connected to the others. This was probably because there was not a customer service function to the departments housed within it. The building (330 Seymour) had been there from about 1909 — well before it was purchased by Spencer’s in the mid-1930s. It was, for most of its life, the HQ of local realtors known as Mackenzie Bros. and later as Robertson Bros. By looking at Vancouver directories, I’ve been able to confirm that the building had a number of functions over its years as a Spencer’s/Eaton’s property: it began as Spencer’s ‘Food Division’ office³ (1936-43) and later, was Spencer’s ‘Ice Cream’ dept. (1944-46); in 1948, it was Spencer’s ‘Sales Office’; from 1949-52, it was Eaton’s ‘Construction Dept’; and from 1955, it served as Eaton’s ‘Stockroom’. I suspect this building was demolished at the same time as the shipping/receiving building and the old Molson Bank building were (in 1973, according to Changing Vancouver).
The old Molson Bank building (far right) was established here in 1898 but was purchased by the Bank of Montreal by 1925. Spencer’s bought the property that year and it remained with Spencer’s/Eaton’s until Eaton’s moved to its final location at Pacific Centre in the early ’70s. Interior features of the old Molson Bank are fondly remembered by Gordon Poppy, a 47-year Spencer’s/Eaton’s veteran (he worked out of the Molson block in the Display Department):
[I remember] the fabulous old metal cage elevator, just inside the door that we used to take to get to our office on the 5th floor. The old metal open caging of the elevator was like plant stems, with leaves branching off the stems. Every leaf, was made with a person’s face in silhouette on one side — all hand crafted. There was a stairway that surrounded the elevator, circling upwards. When Spencer’s took over the building, they created a new entrance, at the corner on Hastings and Seymour, but the old elevator remained in its original location. I remember the old marble slab steps, surrounding the elevator were worn down from the many people using the stairs over many years.
Gordon Poppy, email message, 26 Oct 2018.
Notes
¹Mr. Coltman made several other photos on the same day as this one. I anticipate writing another post based on two or three of the other photos, with a focus on Spencer’s/Eaton’s automobile parking capacity prior to the establishment by Eaton’s of an extant multi-storey parking garage on Cordova between Richards and Homer ca1950.
²In identifying especially the middle building, I have leaned on the knowledge of one of Spencer’s/Eaton’s longtime employees (and a friend of mine), Gordon Poppy.
³Spencer’s had a Vancouver grocery store located apart from the downtown campus at 2310 West 4th Avenue.
Wilf Wylie (1913-1985) was a local musician, music teacher, and band leader.
He was born George Wilfred Wylie to George Primrose Wylie (1881-1949), of Bowness-on-Forth, Scotland and Marion Ida MacKay (1887-1920), of Woodstock, ON. GPW was a plumber in the city who came to Vancouver from Scotland when he was 13 (ca 1894) and ran his own business here from 1911 until 1948 (Province 20 Oct 1949).
Wilf had two older sisters — Alice Janet (1907-?) who was 7 years his senior and Esther Marion (1908-1931) who was 6 years older. Their mother died when she was 33 (and Wilf was 6).
I presume that Wilf went to primary and secondary schools locally and was enrolled in private piano lessons during that time. There is nothing to indicate that he enrolled at UBC nor that he attended a post-secondary piano training college.
Although he wasn’t taking classes at UBC, he was busy making a name for himself there as early as 1936. The Ubyssey had this to say about the music on offer at a “super-colossal pep meet” at the Point Grey campus:
Jackie Williamson¹ and his orchestra provided incidental music — and not so incidental at that, especially in Duke Ellington’s ‘Solitude’, when the air was taken up by trombone, trumpet and clarinet in rapid succession. Wilf Wylie proved his right to a place among the moderns in his catchy, quick-moving solos of ‘Body and Soul’ and ‘Some Day Sweetheart’.
Ubyssey 28 Feb 1936
Wilf was 23 at the time of the pep meet.
Within three years, Wilf was leading his own band and playing the White Rose Ballroom. His band consisted, at this time, of the following personnel: Cliff Binyon, Sid Goldstraw, Pete Lucky, Sam Rainaldi, Ray Turnbull, Pete Watt, and voclist Irene Francis (Sun 23 Dec 1939).
Sun. 6 Sept 1947.
By 1941, he was teaching piano for George Rex’s Popular Music Studios. Rex had a ‘method’ of instruction to help students master a musical instrument. Wylie by 1942 was managing the Vancouver operation, located at 422 Richards. He managed the Vancouver studio through the 1940s.
Wilf spent at least a year in the U.S. (1947?) playing with medium-to-big-name bands in the Los Angeles area; he was lead pianist for a time with Tommy Dorsey’s big band, and with the less-well-known Ray Badauc’s band. Apparently, he also made a recording on the Columbia label with trombonist, Kai Winding sometime in the early ’50s (Ubyssey 5 Oct 1956).
In 1951, Wilf left Rex Studios and accepted a position at Williams Piano House. He would be involved in sales and repair work, and specialized in tuning instruments (Sun 22 Sept 1951). He continued to moonlight as a band leader in the period from the late-1940s until the early ’70s. He played supper clubs and dance locations.
Wilf seems to have retired by the early ’70s. He died in 1985 from heart failure.
Sun. 29 Dec 1971.
He married Frances Robson in 1942. But by 1947 she’d divorced Wilf. In 1952 he married again, this time to Katherine Widdess; and in 1957, history repeated itself with Katherine divorcing him.
As for kids from Wilf’s marriages, there appear to have been at least two: Thomas Milton and Frances Arletta.
He composed and published just one piece of music, as far as I can tell. According to Dale McIntosh, he wrote “High Winds on the Prairie”². This is odd, since, as far as I could tell, Wylie never lived on the prairies, and ‘his’ genre was jazz (rather than country/western, of which genre I assume “High Winds” was).
Notes
¹Jackie Williamson and his Rhythm Band played regular gigs at the Mandarin Gardens restaurant in Chinatown.
²Dale McIntosh. The History of Music in British Columbia. Victoria: Sono Nis Press, 1989, p. 256.
Str P258 – South side of Robson Street looking east from Howe, 1948. Otto F. Landauer (1903-1980) photo.
I think this is a superb post-war image of a Vancouver intersection.
What do I love about it?
First and foremost, I love that it is not a standard Vancouver view. This is not an intersection that was often photographed and, when it was, it was never (dare I be so categorical?) shot this way.
What do I mean? Well, consider for a moment what buildings are not in this image that might well have been included: the York Hotel (by ’69 to be demolished to help make way for the Eaton’s/Sear’s/Nordstrom’s monstrosities that have squatted on the NE corner ever since) — Landauer has included a couple of the York’s signs, but not the building; and the Clements Block/Alexandra Ball Room that housed Sprott Shaw Schools at that time on the SW corner (again, Landauer just hinted at the building by including Sprott’s sign without allowing his image to be overwhelmed by the whole structure).
I love that this image was made (just) prior to the construction of the new (and current) Granville Street Bridge. In my opinion, we seriously overbuilt that bridge. And the bridge had an impact (and continues to do so) on the look and feel of downtown. One of the subtle but very nice aspects of this photo is that Howe Street is still a two-way street in 1948. After the new bridge was up, it would become a one-way (northbound) thoroughfare. I think that affected this corner in a negative way.
I lovethe memories that stick with you when you’ve been inside shops in buildings like these. No, I wasn’t living in Vancouver in 1948; I wasn’t even born, then. But in the 1990s, I recall browsing in a used bookshop (it specialized in music and music scores) that was inside what was once the space occupied by Ann Muirhead’s floristry shop. Maybe it was the aroma of the space. Probably it had something to do with it being an independently owned book shop. But I have never forgotten being in that shop. You and I have been inside countless big box outlets over the years. But how many of those browsing experiences do you remember, specifically?
Finally, I love that the shops are human-scale and that they meet everyday, practical needs. As my wife put it so succinctly: “Who wouldn’t want to go into a shop called “Satin Dairy”?
Today, there is a big box sportswear retailer on the corner. How many times a year are you tempted to enter a sport shop?
When it occurred to me, recently, to research the history of the still-standing Grand Union Hotel (on unit block West Hastings), it seemed to me that it should be a fairly straightforward task. How mistaken I was. It turned out to be a story of some complexity — and numerous real estate ‘flips’!
Oxford
The predecessor of the Grand Union Hotel was known as the Oxford Hotel and was at 38 West Hastings Street (ca1907-1911). The hotel at this address had 32 rooms, a small bar room and a parlour (with a piano in it).
There are no CVA photos available of the Oxford.
Grand Union #1
The Oxford was sold sometime in Spring 1911. Permission was granted in May by the city’s hotel licensing board to change the hotel’s name to the Grand Union Hotel and to move it to the Godson building (aka Braid-Godson; aka Braid-Robertson-Godson; aka Robertson-Godson), just east of the site of the Oxford. In June, the former Oxford Hotel was gutted and the furnishings sold at auction. (Daily World 31 May 1911)
The building in which the first Grand Union Hotel would be located as of 1911, had been constructed in 1901 amid some controversy brought on by multiple accidents on the construction site:
A persistent hoodoo seems to follow the new Braid-Robertson-Godson block. . . . The fourth of a series of accidents occurred there at noon today . . . . The accident was occasioned by the fall of the elevator which is used to hoist building material to the top of the building.
There were seven men on the lift at the time. They were just coming down for lunch . . . . and the engineer, receiving the signal, started to lower away . . . . The descent of the hoist is controlled by a friction brake, which did not seem to hold at first, and when within about thirty feet of the floor, the engineer put it on a little harder to check the rapid fall. Just then the crosspiece supporting the cable at the top of the elevator shaft on the third floor gave way, and the elevator, with its living freight, came down with a crash that could be heard for several blocks.
When the cloud of dust had settled the other workmen who had gathered around saw the seven unfortunate workmen lying around the broken hoist, none able to rise. . . . Of those hurt J. G. Bell sustained the most serious injuries, consisting of a double compound fracture of the left leg and a dislocation of the right. James Paull also suffered a fracture of the left leg and a dislocation of the right. This unfortunate accident calls to mind three previous accidents which have occurred since construction commenced on the block.
The architect who drew the original plans is now in a sanitarium and shortly after the construction was commenced a workman named Penway was injured by being struck by the elevator as it was coming down. A few weeks later Mr. W. T. Whiteway, the architect who is supervising the construction was also struck by the same elevator. The third chapter in the series of accidents happened on Tuesday when Contractor Forshaw had the misfortune to fall down the elevator shaft alongside that on which the accident occurred today.
Province. 24 July 1901.
‘Persistent hoodoo’? Nonsense! What was needed was someone charged with ensuring workers’ safety on that job site.
The first Grand Union Hotel had 102 rooms, thus giving it about 2/3 greater capacity than the Oxford had. According to a press account, the new hotel also had an “airy” dining room and a “strictly modern” bar. It was four stories.
The first co-owners of the new hotel were Leslie Park Clement and Isbrand DeFehr. Both men had cut their teeth in business enterprises in Alberta. Clement had hotel experience in Didsbury and Edmonton. DeFehr didn’t have any prior hotel experience, it seems, but was formerly a lumberman in Didsbury and Carstairs.
Within four months of buying the Grand Union, Clement bailed and DeFehr was left as the sole proprietor. Before the advent of 1912, De Fehr had sold the hotel to Harry Watson and William Murdoff for $65,000. The sale did not go smoothly, however, and by January, a receiver had been appointed to run the Grand Union while DeFehr sued the new owners to recover $30,000 for breach of contract; Watson and Murdoff, in turn, counter-sued DeFehr to recover their deposit paid for the property. DeFehr won both the suit and counter-suit and was granted possession by Mr. Justice Murphy of the Grand Union (again). But only for a few months. By the Fall of 1912, the hotel had been sold again — this time to T. J. Hanafin and W. Lucas.
But the hotel had only a few years before the wreckers came calling. By 1916, the Grand Union Hotel (32 W Hastings), the Strand Theatre¹ (36 W Hastings) and a then-vacant store that had earlier been the site of Mainland Meat Market would all be demolished to make room for the second Panatges Theatre (later known by the names Beacon, Odeon and Majestic Theatres). The demolition of the three properties would give the Pantages a huge frontage along Hastings of 102 feet. Demolition work began in July 1916.
There are no CVA photos available of the Grand Union Hotel #1.
Grand Union #2
I don’t understand how (or why he’d want it after finally successfully selling it), but by July 1916, through some real estate shenanigans, Isbrand DeFehr had snatched back ownership of the Grand Union Hotel.
Just in time for another move!
Vancouver Sun. 10 May 1939. Photo shows some of the exterior re-decorating done to the Grand Union Hotel in this year by Girvan Studios.
By July 1916, the first Grand Union Hotel was dust. Within a month, DeFehr had received permission from the city to re-establish the hotel at a new site (in the same block of W Hastings, but closer to Abbott Street than to Carrall). The former businesses at this site had been Bergman’s Rooms (74 W Hastings) and Bergman’s Cafe (76 W Hastings), both built in 1913. The rooming house component would become the second Grand Union Hotel, while the cafe would become the Grand Union beer parlour (today, “Vancouver’s Favorite Country Music Pub”) and a boot shining establishment. I could find no evidence that the number of guest rooms was increased between the rooming house period and the opening of the second Grand Union. Indeed, it appears from an auction notice that appeared in the local press in May 1930, that the Grand Union in that year had 20 guest rooms. (Province, 27 May 1930)
Grand Union Today
The ‘hotel’ is extant, but according to recent press clippings, it no longer functions as such. It is a type of Single Room Occupancy residence for seniors.
The Grand Union has been in decline since it was first established at 32 W Hastings in 1911. It began life in the heart of the business district and was the subject of considerable realty competition. More recently, it has been on the border of Vancouver’s east end, no longer the subject of competition by realtors nor those with spare cash to spend on hot properties.
Notes
¹The Strand Theatre on Hastings should not be confused with The Strand Theatre (first known as the Allen Theatre) on Georgia at Seymour. The Hastings Strand was known as the Electric Theatre when it was built in 1911; as the Panama (1912); the Regal (1914) and, finally as the Strand (1916). Thanks to Tom Carter for helping keep me on the ‘straight and narrow’ when it comes to the history of Vancouver’s theatre names!
The three images featured in this post of the 700 block of Seymour Street are among the finest available of the block from CVA online. Professional photographer, Don Coltman, was commissioned to make the images for Shell Oil, Co. in 1947.¹ Not only are the images of high quality technically, but subject-wise they were made at a point in time when the block was at its prime — before it ceased to be a stroll-worthy downtown block of retail shops and became a less friendly block of non-human-scale buildings.
West Side
Annotations by MDM, 2019.
Strand (Allen) Theatre
The Strand Theatre (earlier known as the Allen Theatre when it was built in 1920) was demolished, as was Birk’s building (visible from Seymour, but actually fronting on Granville) in 1974. These buildings would be replaced by the initial instalment of Vancouver Centre Mall and Scotia Tower (1974- ). The earlier occupant of the SW corner of Seymour at Georgia (1891-1920) was the Waverly Hotel (owned by the Queen brothers, who also ran the livery stable there).
Girvan Arts & Crafts Studio
John Girvan was proprietor of the Arts and Crafts Studio, an interior decorating concern that appeared on the block by the mid-’30s. Girvan was a member of the Royal Scottish Society of the Arts and of the Incorporated Institute of British Decorators. Girvan’s firm did the redecorating of the interior and exterior of Capitol Theatre in 1929; they also re-did the interior of Holy Rosary Cathedral in 1951.
There was also a plumber and electrician in the block.
According to the 1947 city directory, there was another occupant of 721 Seymour that year: a group hitherto unknown to me called the Legion of Frontiersmen. This was a voluntary paramilitary group dedicated to the defence of Britain; it was started in 1905 by former RNWMP constable, Roger Pocock, and has had its ups and downs since then (most of the ‘ups’, not surprisingly, came during the two world wars). It is still functioning today under the patronage of Edwina, Countess Mountbatten. Interestingly, one of the officers of the Legion during WWII was John Girvan. He may have been the Legion’s Vancouver landlord.
Captain John Girvan, staff officer; 2nd I.C. Major L. O. Dennison (L.F.), provincial commandant; Lieut. H. A. Fairbairn; comprising the B.C. provincial command staff of the Legion of Frontiersmen. The Province. 12 March 1942.
Code’s & Royal Parking (Used Auto Sales)
The two single-storey parking facilities just south of Girvan Arts & Crafts Studios seem to have been ‘parking lots’ but only secondarily. Principally, the two seem to have been used car lots (possibly serving as an overflow lot of Blackburn’s on Seymour’s 800 block.
In addition To being called “Royal Parking”, that lot was known variously over the years as “Burrard Motors Ltd.”, “Seymour Auto Sales”, and “Hav-A-Car”. The auto sales component of these two lots seemed to peter out by the early 1950s. About this time, a “Rite Park” lot was established there. This lot apparently made its money exclusively from charging for parking. It may be that this was the four-storey concrete parking lot which was at this site until recently (see photo below), when construction crews demolished it and began to dig for the establishment, by 2021 it is claimed, of the second instalment of the Vancouver Centre Mall and office tower adjacent to the Scotia Tower. VCII, as it will be known, will have a footprint extending from Scotia as far south as Vancouver House (605 Robson), about which more below.
CVA 779-E02.24 – West side of 700 Seymour, looking north towards Georgia street. 1981. np. Note concrete 4-storey parkade on sites of the former Royal/Code’s Parking Lots.
McFarland Building (and Orillia Rooms)
In 1947, this building was known as the Ambassador Hotel. However, it was called the Lolomi Hotel upon its construction in 1913 and was later known as the Hudson Hotel. The Ambassador lasted through Expo ’86, but not long after, I gather. It was demolished to help make way for an office building known as “Vancouver House“, completed in 1989, at the NW corner (605) of Robson at Seymour.
Although Orillia Rooms faced onto Robson rather than 700 block Seymour, strictly speaking, it was no less part of the block (not unlike Strand Theatre). The Orillia was a mixed-use commercial/residential block over which much ink has been spilled, including on VAIW. I won’t add more here.
Vancouver Sun. 23 August 1913.
VPL 8963A. The lobby of the Hotel Hudson (McFarland Building). 1927. Stuart Thomson
East Side
Annotations by MDM, 2019.
Crop of CVA 586-7266. My buddy, Wes, has identified the vehicle directly in front of Rose Cowan & Latta as a ’38 Chevy Master Deluxe Coupe.
All of the east side of 700 Seymour was swallowed by the enormous development of BC Telephone Co. (now Telus) in the late ’60s or early ’70s, I believe. Most of the properties from the Fire Hall north to Georgia were consumed by BC Tel. (Telus has since then taken BC Tel’s property-munching ways to the extreme by developing the block into TelusGarden).
As we did with the west side, we will begin at the north end (not all properties of which are visible in Coltman’s photo) and work our way south to Robson.
Clinic
At the SE corner of Seymour and Georgia in 1947 was a medical clinic; it was within the Publicity Building. By the early ’50s, however, the physicians who’d worked in this clinic abandoned the space for, presumably, cushier digs at the NE corner of Broadway at Fir.
CVA 69-21.07 – SE Corner of Seymour at Georgia looking south down Seymour towards Robson. 1972-74. Ernie Fladell photo. The Publicity Building which housed the medical clinic in 1947 is still visible in this early ’70s image… but not for much longer.
Finch’s Garage
The garage at 714 Seymour, known in the late ’20s as Strand Garage, came to be Finch’s Garage, Urwin Finch proprietor, by the mid-1930s and remained so until 1950 upon Urwin’s death that year.
Quadra Club (Technocracy, Inc. and Spritualists)
The Quadra Club has been elsewhere discussed on VAIW. The club was at the Seymour site from ca1942 until the early ’70s, when it wrapped up operations. Before the Quadra Club moved into this space, however, there were a couple of tenants who were arguably of a quirkier variety.
In 1940, a group known as Technocracy, Inc. moved in. They had been around Vancouver at least since the mid-’30s. But that year the federal government outlawed them and in this province, the BC Provincial Police enforced the action. So much for that lease.
Hard on the heels of Technocracy Inc. came the Christian Church of Spiritual Light. This bunch was affiliated with the National Spiritualist Association of Canada. I expect that they would have presented a comfortable pew for then-Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King! This group lasted just a couple of years; they were gone from 724 Seymour by 1942.
Vancouver Sun 14 Dec 1940.
Smith’s Button Works (the first fully visible business in Coltman’s east side image)
The Province. 24 Feb, 1929.
This tailoring shop had a long life on Granville Street from ca1917-1929. They moved to 736 Seymour in 1929, presumably because rental rates had escalated to unbearable levels for proprietor, Alex S. Smith to retain his business on the main drag.
His business seemed to retain custom at the new location as his shop remained in business from 1929 through 1947 when the Coltmam photo was made and as late as 1963. Alex Smith died in 1964.
In 1963, the Inquisition Cafe moved into 736 Seymour, for a matter of months.
Rose, Cowan & Latta (and vocal instructors)
This printing company was a partnership of Robert R. Rose, John B. Cowan and Robert P. Latta. The firm began as R. P. Latta & Co. at 500 Beatty (ca1910-ca1920) and became a partnership at 748 Seymour ca1923. In 1956, BC Telephone Co. bought their property for future expansion. The business moved to Strathcona.
VFD Fire Hall No. 2
Fire Hall No. 2 originally was built in 1888 a little bit north of this location – at 724 Seymour (roughly where the Quadra Club was by 1947), but this structure came down in 1903. In 1904, the building at this location was established. In 1951, the City offered the Fire Hall for sale and (surprise, surprise) BC Telephone Co. bought it for future expansion,
BC Telephone Co.
The 8-storey structure adjacent to the Fire Hall was BC Tel’s existing office block. It was built in 1919. Adjacent to it (on the NE corner of Robson and Seymour) was the construction site of what would become known as BC Tel’s William Farrell Building. The Farrell block still stands; it is scarcely recognizable, however, as it was covered in a glass ‘skin’ a few years ago.
One of the original homes in this part of the east side of 700 Seymour was the Australia Boarding House, a boarder at which Aussie import and much-appreciated local pro photographer, Stuart Thomson, laid his head upon first arriving in Vancouver.
CVA 99-29 – Australia Boarding House, 776 Seymour Street. ca 1915. Stuart Thomson.
___
Notes
¹It isn’t clear to me why Shell commissioned these images of Seymour. As far as I know, they didn’t own any property on this block. Perhaps they were considering buying property along here. The only connection I can come up with is that Shell mounted their logo atop the Vancouver Block in the ’50s. But that seems to me like a stretch as a motive to commission photos of the block behind that building. (It is a pity that these three Seymour Street images aren’t ‘keyworded’ as such by CVA. They turn up during a search for Shell Oil, but not when searching for Seymour Street).
CVA 289-003.361 – Calithumpian Parade on Dominion Day (or Canada Day, as it has less prosaically been known since 1982) . Float of Jantzen swim wear (fn1). July 1, 1926. Many Dominion Day parades (notably in 1925) were identified in press reports as being calithumpian in nature. Just what was meant by that reference was left, largely, to readers’ imaginations.
What on earth is a “calithumpian” and what is its relevance in a blog about how Vancouver once was?
An article in the Woodstock (Ontario) Sentinel-Review, had this to say:
According to the Thamesford [Ontario] Calithumpian website, the word Calithumpian is an old English expression that is defined as a spontaneous clown parade or a party held after a public hanging. . .
Celebratory public hangings?² Has this family-oriented blog taken a wrong turn?
Fear not, gentle reader. Read on.
The first press report mentioning Vancouver “calithumpians” seems to have been in an 1890 edition of the Vancouver Daily World. In a detailed account of the 1890 Labor Day events, it was noted that there had been a parade (or “procession”):
An interesting part of the procession, although not prepared by the [planning] committee, was a crowd of calithumpians mounted on fiery charges and fitted up in the most grotesque costumes. Colored men [probably not black men; more likely, white guys in ‘black face’] and clowns were the favored styles of masquerade. They kept good order and seemed to give the spice and variety to the procession. Some of their horses were fitted out with men’s trousers and braces [suspenders, presumably].
8 September 1890 Vancouver Daily World
This clipping is noteworthy here for at least three reasons. First, “calithumpians” is used in this report to refer not to the parade/procession, but to a subset of the participants. Second, these participants were identified as “colored men and clowns…[and] horses fitted out with men’s trousers and braces.” And third, the calithumpians were not ‘official’; their participation wasn’t planned, but seemingly spontaneous.
In 1925, it was announced by the Dominion Day planning group, that the parade associated with the occasion that year, would be calithumpian in nature. It seems that the term had fallen into disuse since the late 19th century, and the author of an article in the Vancouver Sun posed a good question at the outset of his piece:
What is a calithumpian parade? That is the question being asked by thousands of Vancouver citizens following the announcement by the committee in charge of the Dominion Day celebration that such a parade will be one of the great features of the mammoth display proposed for the celebration of Canada’s natal day in Vancouver. Well, one description is that it is a boisterous, noisy and spectacular compilation of entertaining public features, pleasing to the eye. . . [It] resembles the Mardi Gras, which has made New Orleans famous, and will be the first parade of its kind held on the Pacific Coast. It consists of a burlesque of every known animal, prehistoric or existent, birds of the air, fowl of the earth, fish of the sea. Every animal from an elephant to a cat will be represented. Throughout the parade, fifty to seventy-five clowns – amateur and professional – will contribute their antics to the general revelry. Hick bands, colored minstrels, wonderful impersonators of public and private citizens, will also be on the programme.
27 April 1925 Vancouver Sun
The Province (in a piece published 8 June 1925) pointed out that the Dominion Day parade of 1925 would have “floats [that] will be historic, fanciful and funny. . . and will be the most elaborate in design ever attempted in the city. . . [and] the committee has been informed that thousands of visitors will come to the city from the United States for the celebration, and it is expected one of the greatest crowds on record will be on hand. . .”
Post-1925 press mentions of calithumpians referred exclusively to parades (not participants). And these reports nearly always referred to parades that a present-day Vancouver resident would instantly recognize. There would be clowns, floats and marching bands, as opposed to the earlier typical participants – soldiers, horse-drawn wagons, and (in 1890, at least) horses fitted out with men’s trousers!
Another new element of the 1925-and-later parades was that they seemed to be designed to appeal to outsiders as compared with earlier parades which were principally for residents. Perhaps that was the most significant meaning of the 1925-and-later calithumpian parades: they were ‘thumping’ the tourism drum.
CVA 149-04 – Section of Dominion Day Parade on Cordova Street. July 1 1887. J A Brock photo. A pre-1925 parade, consisting principally of soldiers marching and horses drawing wagons. It seems that the calithumpian nature of the 1925 Dominion Day parade was the turning point – floats, bands, and clowns were in the ascendancy.
Notes
¹The corporate slogan of Jantzen for a number of years (displayed on the float) was “The suit that changed bathing to swimming”. For more on Jantzen and its connection to Vancouver, see here.
²The last public execution in B.C. was in 1959 at Oakalla Prison, in the Vancouver suburb of Burnaby.
The artist, Valentin Firsov Shabaeff, would have been about 86 when this photo was taken in December 1977. It was taken at the home of Vladimir and Svetlana Rajewsky in Montreal. Shabaeff is sitting in front of his painting, Wealth of Canada. The photo has been kindly provided by Irina Rajewsky (daughter of V & S Rajewsky). Irina is the current owner of Wealth of Canada.
Mini Bio
Valentin Firsov Shabaeff (1891-1978) was born in central Russia. He was admitted to the Moscow Art Academy at the age of 16, where he studied for five years; subsequently, he studied at the Imperial Academy of Art in St. Petersburgh for four years. After this formal training, he travelled for three years in Japan, China, and Indonesia prior to moving to the U.S.A. in about 1925. He moved to Canada in 1929.
He lived mainly in the Montreal area during many of his years in Canada. However, he was known to move around quite frequently to various locations in Ontario and Quebec.
He married his first wife, Grace Dempster (1920-2009) in September, 1946. She is described in press reports as being a former school teacher of Montreal and Toronto. Valentin and Grace had a daughter together, Agnia, born in 1950. The marriage was dissolved at some point and Valentin married Sonia Shabaeff (her pre-marital surname is unknown by me).
Shabaeff in Vancouver
Valentin Shabaeff spent 1939-40 in Vancouver. He was in the city principally to create art for the current Hotel Vancouver in anticipation of the visit of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth to the city in May 1939. The Royal Couple would be staying at the hotel.
While he was in Vancouver working on his contributions to the Hotel Vancouver, he taught elementary drawing at the Vancouver Art School (Jack Shadbolt and P. V. Ustinov were teaching intermediate and advanced drawing, at the school, respectively). Shabaeff had a studio, which also served as his residence, at #60 – 429 West Pender (in the still-standing Hutchinson Block).
Two Panels in the Cafe of the “Golden Inn”²
The best documented work by Shabaeff was in the hotel cafe; it consisted of panels at opposite ends of the room.
In the splendid cafe, Valentin Shabaeff, Russian-Canadian artist of great reputation, now living in Vancouver, has created two wonderful panels in gold-leaf and Venetian red for the ends of the room.
— Vancouver Sun. April 29, 1939
Whether the panels were made of metal or some other material, isn’t clear to me. I’m inclined to believe that it was metal, given the appearance of the panels in photographs and the mention of “gold-leaf” above, but I’ve not seen any documentation explicitly confirming that.³
Primary Panel
The primary panel was at the end of the cafe space where the podium would be situated (if there were a speaker at an event).
Irina Rajewsky, upon reading a much earlier version of this post, contacted me to let me know that she had a Shabaeff painting on which the principal cafe panel was based. The painting, called Wealth of Canada, was originally owned by her parents, Vladimir and Svetlana Rajewsky and today is owned by Irina. She offered to send me a photograph of the Wealth of Canada; it appears below.
Wealth of Canada, a 2.5×2.5m oil painting on linen by Valentin Shabaeff, ca1938. This served as a preliminary effort by Sbabaeff to work out some of his ideas for the work of his (shown below) in the cafe of Hotel Vancouver. This photo of Wealth of Canada has been kindly provided by Irina Rajewsky, its current owner.
Wealth of Canada is a much busier work than the hotel panel which was based on it. While there appear to be five indigenous figures in WoC, there are two in the hotel panel, and both those in the panel are bearing fruit above or near their heads. I make no pretence to be expert in identifying indigenous people, and I suspect that Shabaeff wasn’t much of an expert in that area, either. The teepee in the upper left corner (as well as the brave on horseback) speaks to me of plains natives; but plains people, in my opinion, would have been very unlikely to have had access to the exotic variety of fruit held above the heads of the central figures in WoC.
Happily, these hints at plains people didn’t make it into the hotel panel. The clouds and sunbeams were introduced in the Hotel panel and the cloud formations are complemented well by the mountains/foothills landscape as well as the seascape.
This is one of the panels by Valentin Shabaeff that was in the cafe of the Hotel Vancouver. According to Irina Rajewsky, this work was based on the Wealth of Canada oil painting.
Secondary Panel
The other panel in the cafe was at the opposite end of the long, narrow room, above the doors through which diners would have entered. The photograph shown below was made of a Shell Oil Co. banquet held in the room. The second image shows a close-up of the panel (it is a crop of the first photo).
CVA 586-5271 – Shell Oil banquet group Don Coltman photo. 1944.
Crop of CVA 586-5271.
This panel appears to consist of mirror images of a female human (indigenous?) figure. The grain theme surrounding the primary panel was echoed in the secondary panel.
Hotel Lobby
There is just one reference, that I was able to find, to Shabaeff’s work in the Hotel Vancouver lobby. A caption in February 11, 1939 Vancouver Sun (the photo is too poor to merit reproduction here) claims that the artist was working on “a Neptune and Steamship theme” for the lobby.
I was able to identify lobby art that appeared to be “Neptune”, but nothing that seemed to speak to a “steamship” theme. Neptune appears above the main lobby entry in the photo below. Neptune appears to me to be composed of similar material as that of the cafe panels.
Library and Archives Canada (Mikan No. 3355696) New Vancouver Hotel. Main entry to the lobby (Georgia St entry). 1939.
Crop of the above image showing artwork near the ceiling of Neptune (center, by Shabaeff) and indigenous artwork (flanking Neptune, not by Shebaeff, I’m assuming).
I assume that the “Mermaid” figure (also in the lobby) was part of Shabaeff’s Neptune theme.
Library and Archives Canada Photo (Mikan No. 3356700). Vancouver Hotel – No. 3 lounge, ground floor. 1939. I would consider this to be part of the hotel lobby. Note Mermaid panel.
Hotel Ballroom
Shabaeff’s remaining art work for the Hotel Vancouver was perhaps the oddest. It was located in the ballroom. It was odd because the subject matter of this painting was outside of Shabeaff’s ‘wheelhouse’; the George III period really wasn’t his thing.
The Vancouver Sun had this to say about the mural in 1939:
At one end of the ballroom is the stage. At the other end is a large mural painting by Valentin Shabaeff. It is an outdoors scene, costumed for the George III period, in which the Adam brothers rose to fame, and beautifully worked out in color.
— Vancouver Sun. May 27, 1939
So, the ballroom art was a painted mural of English ‘lords and ladies’, I’m assuming, who were dressed in the style of the George III period.
CVA 595-4 – C.A.R.E.B. 14th Convention – Hotel Vancouver – Oct. 20-23, 1957 – Vancouver, B.C. 1957. Sunday Photos. This image was made in the Ballroom (from the stage platform, I suspect), looking towards Shabaeff’s mural on the far wall. Unhappily, only part of the mural is visible above, but this is the best image I could find of it anywhere.
The above is a crop of the previous Sunday photo of Shabaeff’s ballroom George III-style mural (in part).
Why would a mural in the style of the ‘mad’ King George III be thought to be honouring to George VI? Who can say what the motivation was to create this mural. One thing remains pretty clear, however: this subject would not have been Shabeaff’s choice if he’d had any say in the matter. It seems plain to me that he was told to paint such a scene.
All Gone
All of the art created by Shabaeff for the hotel (as well as most of the work created by other artists for the opening of the hotel in 1939 – including that of Beatrice Lennie, Jock Macdonald, and Lawrence Smith), is gone, today. It was lost during demolitions to renovate the hotel; probably most of them went during 1960s ‘improvements’ when the hotel was part of the Hilton chain.
Shabaeff died in 1978. I couldn’t find an obituary, but according to Irina Rajewsky, he was killed by a drunk driver who veered onto a downtown Montreal sidewalk upon which Shabaeff was walking.
Notes
¹Several of these bio details came from a feature article about Shabaeff in the Ottawa Journal, March 23, 1957.
² In the Hotel’s earliest period – particularly prior to its opening and for about a year after – it was known as the “Golden Inn”. (When the prose was really purple, it was sometimes called the “Great Golden Inn of the West”). I suspect that the “Golden Inn” name was conferred by the press (or perhaps by the PR people attached to the hotel) as way of distinguishing the new HV from the older one which was still standing at the SW corner of Granville and Georgia. The moniker may have been due to the appearance of the new hotel’s exterior due to the copper on its roof. The copper later changed appearance from its initial ‘golden’ colour to green. The Hotel Vancouver seems not to have been referred to as the Golden Inn in the local press after 1939.
³There is a hint in an article in the Vancouver Sun that his panel work (both in the cafe and in the lobby) may have been composed of bronze. This is by no means certain, however: “[Bronze] was used in the new hotel for many purposes — office fixtures, ornamental cornices and canopies, doors, balustrading, rails….In every case the metal was cast, wrought and finished in Vancouver…” (Vancouver Sun, May 27, 1939).
Postcard showing the choir loft and organ of First Baptist Church, Vancouver (Hamilton and Dunsmuir), ca 1900.
Context
It was the spring of 1905. First Baptist Church was still worshipping in the modest wooden building on Hamilton and Dunsmuir, but they had purchased the lot on Burrard and Nelson and were beginning to raise funds to build there.
The pastor, J. W. Litch, was new – he’d been in the job for just a few months following a year-long pulpit search made necessary by two years of disagreement over the previous pastor whom the congregation had ultimately urged (politely) to ‘hit the bricks’. This disagreement had caused more than 50 of the longest-standing members to march out of FBC in loyalty to the former minister; they’d formed a new church, called the West End Baptist Church.
And, to top it all off, there was a major fire in the Hamilton and Dunsmuir building that spring!
The officers and pastor of FBC surely had a full plate. One would have thought they’d have had neither energy nor inclination to engage in personality politics.
It Begins
From the minutes of FBC officers, March 14/05:
Pastor Litch… explained his position taken with the choir in regard to qualifications for [choir] membership, stating that he had requested the members to refrain from all questionable amusements, such as card playing, dancing, theatre, etc., which had resulted in a few of the members leaving. Also stating that he believed the rule of the church to the effect that the choir be made up of Christians, should be rigidly enforced.
Litch’s second point – that all choir members ought to be Christians – doesn’t seem unreasonable.
His first point, however, creates in my imagination a bizarre spectacle — of a choir loft filled with tenors wearing old-fashioned card-players’ visors and dealing hands of gin rummy while the sopranos ‘cut a rug’ with guys in the bass section!
Surely not.
Officers’ meetings for the next two months were consumed with negotiations with the West End Baptist Church and fire insurance companies.
However, by May, the pastor and officers had apparently recovered and were ready again to ‘do battle’ with the choir. But they had, by then, narrowed their target from the choir to an individual: organist/choirmaster, John Alexander.
A report of certain actions on the part of the choirmaster in criticizing the pastor and officers in choir practice and elsewhere was given (verbally) to the meeting and the following motion… was carried: The Secretary [to the Board of Officers] be instructed to request Mr. Alexander to meet the officers in this office on Monday evening next for the purpose of explaining certain matters.
I wonder if Mr. Alexander recited a line or two from the famous children’s cautionary verse as he went to this meeting:
“Will you walk into my parlor?” said the Spider to the Fly,
“’Tis the prettiest little parlor that ever you did spy;
The way into my parlor is up a winding stair,
And I have many curious things to show you when you are there.”
“Oh no, no,” said the Fly, “to ask me is in vain;
For who goes up your winding stair can ne’er come down again.” (Mary Howit, 1829)
Here is how the minutes record the meeting:
The chairman stated that he understood Mr. Alexander had at times, in choir meetings and elsewhere, questioned and criticized the pastor and officers and especially on Friday evening last, when… on several occasions [he] had spoken disrespectfully of the pastor and his judgement in the selection of hymns etc. and also that Mr. Alexander appeared to be generally dissatisfied and asked him if he wished to make any statement in regard to the matter.
Mr. Alexander denied ever having said anything except what would be justified in ordinary conversation. Claiming he had a right to express his opinion on any matter or individual and refused to make any statement without a definite charge laid and by some individual.
The officers ought to have called a halt to ‘the inquisition’ at this point and waited for a convenient opportunity to fire Alexander. Labour laws were much laxer in those days; it would not have been difficult.
But they seemingly couldn’t stop themselves. Everywhere they turned that year, there were crises over which they had little control: the West End church, a fire, debt on their current building, and the prospect of massive debt for a new one. But here, at last, was an issue they thought they could control!
Unfortunately, the subtlety of the spider was lost on them. They simply turned up the heat:
The chairman asked Mr. Alexander:
1. Have you spoken at the choir meeting in a way that would lead the [choir] members to think you did not respect the pastor… ? Mr. A. refused to answer.
2. Did you not one Sunday morning take issue with the pastor in regard to a certain hymn that was to be sung and prolong the discussion unduly past the hour for opening the service? Mr. A. could not recall it.
Mr. Litch came in at this point and asked several questions in regard to Mr. Alexander’s attitude on several occasions, but Mr. Alexander could not recall any occasion upon which he had acted or spoken in a manner that was not justified by the occasion…
Two months later, in late July, the officers wrote to choir members with the suggestion that “a vacation of three months should be given” during the summer. It is normal practice, today, for the choir to take a break during the summer months, but I gather from this that it wasn’t the norm in the early 1900s.
It seems that Mr. Alexander took his (no doubt, unpaid) ‘vacation’ along with other choir members. But he was no fool; he knew that the nursery rhyme always ends with the spider killing the fly. And so, in late September, Mr. Alexander chose to fall on his sword; he resigned.
Thus ended a sad case of how minor issues can be nursed into major ones; and of how personality conflict can take on a life of its own and become a form of vanity.
But wait! The tale is not quite over, yet. Mr. Alexander had one final card to play which he must have known would drive Pastor Litch and FBC officers nuts.
An advertisement was quietly placed (and paid for) in The Province by a gentleman with a Scots accent. It read:
The ad was accurate in every detail and contained neither slur nor disrespectful comments: the sort of music favoured by First at that time (especially in the evening services), was evangelical choruses – particularly those by popular composer Ira Sankey. Likewise accurate was the proscription against card-playing and theatre-going, although First probably was not well-pleased to have this tidbit appear in a newspaper.
Predictably, the officers were furious. They contacted The Province to learn all they could about who placed the ad. An investigation of the matter was even launched (although it seems cooler heads ultimately prevailed and it was called off), and they wrote their own ad correcting Alexander’s.
In his ad, Alexander appears to have done what he consistently claimed of all of his alleged comments about the pastor and officers: nothing more than was justified by the occasion!
This piece was originally written by VAIW’s author in 2011.
It is reproduced in this form with just a few editorial changes.
Monument to the first survey stake that CPR Land Commissioner, L.A. Hamilton, drove at SW corner of what is now known as Hastings and Hamilton streets. The monument was erected on the front of the former Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce building at 300 West Hastings (the earlier site of the Inns of Court building) in April 1953. Created by Sydney March. Unknown photographer, ca1952.
This monument was created in 1952 to honour the driving of the first survey stake by CPR Land Commissioner, L. A. Hamilton (sometimes referred to as the “Godfather of Vancouver”), at the site (300 Hastings Street; SW corner of Hamilton and Hastings) from where the city would be laid out into what we know today as the streets of downtown and the West End.
When the initial Inns of Court building, the first non-indigenous man-made structure on this corner, was demolished and was replaced by the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce building ca 1950, the monument (created by Sydney March) was set into the Hastings street side of the new building.
When the bank, in turn, was demolished in 2015, the word on the street was that the new owner of the site had indicated that the monument would be retained in a public place somewhere on the building.
However, the new building (the SFU Charles Chang Innovation Centre) has been fully built and open now for about a year, but there’s still no sign of the monument in the new structure. I cannot see the plaque anywhere on the building’s exterior. It’s possible that it is inside the foyer of the building, but the door is always locked and so, if it is in there, it isn’t accessible to the general public — for whom the plaque surely was designed.
So what has become of the commemorative plaque?
CVA 778-142 CIBC building at 300 West Hastings (at Hamilton) with the monument showing to the left of the front entry to the bank, 1974. (Photo cropped by author).
Str P306 – Major J.S. Matthews (City of Vancouver’s first Archivist) and William N. Cooper (manager, CIBC) examine the spot where the first survey peg was driven to mark the C.P.R. Townsite in 1885. Bill Cunningham photo, 1953.
Demolition of the CIBC building, March 2015. Author’s photo.
SFU’s Charles Chang Innovation Centre building at SW Corner Hamilton and Hastings. 2019. Author’s photo.
Mon P63.1 – [Miss Isobel O. Hamilton (daughter of Lauchlan Hamilton) and J.S. Matthews unveil a bronze plaque to commemorate Lauchlan Alexander Hamilton], 1953. W J Dennett photo.
CVA 586-3200 – Hotel Vancouver 1944 Don Coltman photo.
This photograph shows a 240-foot Bailey Bridge (1 of 2 by Don Coltman; the other image appears below) spanning Georgia Street at Howe Street in 1944.
Zooming on the image reveals a sign on the structure identifying it as “Bailey Bridge Class #2(? or 7?) Dual Carriageway”. Initially, I assumed that “Bailey” was after a local British Columbian (e.g., Vancouver professional photography pioneer, Charles Bailey). But I later learned that while Bailey is indeed a surname, it wasn’t for a B.C. resident, but for British engineer, Sir Donald Bailey; furthermore, the name of the bridge isn’t a unique identifier, but instead is a type of bridge (created by Bailey) which was commonly used during and after WWII in Europe and elsewhere. The Bailey was developed in 1940 and was adopted by the Allies in 1941. It was a modular means of spanning a water or land gap with a structure that could carry vehicles as large and heavy as tanks. The bridge was carried by engineers in 10-foot panels and was constructed where needed.
The structure shown in these photos was erected within a 10-hour period by Royal Canadian army engineers in 1944 as part of ‘Army Week’ for the 7th Victory Loan campaign. It was able to carry a load of up to 50 tons. Construction began at midnight on November 1. The bridge0 was in service for pedestrians and vehicles, reportedly, by 10 a.m. Apparently, the Bailey Bridge had only just been released from the ‘secret list‘. (Vancouver Sun, 1 November 1944) The Bridge’s opening ribbon was cut by Hollywood luminary, Gail Patrick.
The bridge proved so popular with Vancouverites, who flocked to walk across it or drive beneath it (on Georgia) or across it (on Howe), that engineers decided to leave the bridge up for about 24 hours longer than had originally been planned. It was dismantled on the evening of November 3rd.
CVA 586-3202 – [Walkway over Georgia Street] 1944 Don Coltman.
The pictured Bailey Bridge was not the only one to be constructed in Greater Vancouver. One other Bailey Bridge (of a different sort) was erected over Georgia Street in May 1945, just a few months before the War’s end. This one was an 80-foot spanner that was able to bear 70 tons. This bridge, evidently had a similar PR function – serving to boost Victory Loan contributions. This bridge was opened by Edgar Bergen, of Charlie McCarthy fame. This bridge was dismantled later on the same day of its erection (Vancouver Sun, 3 May 1945).
Bailey Bridges have been utilized in the Vancouver area for non-PR purposes since the War. An example was in the aftermath of the 1949 flood of the Capilano River in West Vancouver (Vancouver Sun 28 November 1949).
For additional info on Bailey Bridges, consult this page. A fascinating article of the contribution of a Canadian to Bailey Bridge variants may be found here: “Kingsmill Bridge in Italy”, by Ken MacLeod.
CVA 586-7136 – Hudson’s Bay Co. Shoe Clinic, Granville St. – Shoe Repairing, 1946. Don Coltman.
Jack Stead (1926-1990)
The ‘first foot’ tradition is one that I first became aware of as a pre-teen when a family friend, who was a Canadian of Scots ancestry, would arrive at our front door on New Year’s Day – shortly after midnight – to wish us a ‘Happy Hogmanay’ and to claim (safely) that his was the ‘first foot’ to cross our threshold on the first day of the New Year!
Another family friend, Kathie, had this additional information to share regarding the first foot custom:
My Mom talked about first footing and how my brother Jim had to come in first because he was ‘dark hair’; he was good luck. Fair-haired people weren’t such good luck; they needed to bring salt across the threshold. Mom used to say Hogmanay was always a big celebration when she was growing up in Scotland.
It seemed apropos, therefore, today to show this post-war photo of HBC’s shoe repair department. Surely a necessary stop in those days after a night of too much ‘first footing’!
Baffle your friends. Wish them Happy Hogmanay!
This post is dedicated to the memory of Jack Stead – our family’s First Footer.
Wrecking machine with a jaw-full of wreckage from now-demolished Hobbit House. January, 2019. MDM photo.
“In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hold, and that means comfort.”
— J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit.
_______
Hobbit House at 1025 Nelson Street (just west of Burrard), was demolished by First Baptist Church during the first week of December, 2018, as part of the church’s plan to build a 57-storey residential tower on the site. October 2018. Author’s photo.
Hobbit House (1972-2018) is actually considerably older than 46 years. It was built as a residence much earlier¹ and, until it was transformed into Hobbit House (1025 Nelson), served as a rooming house. It became a coffee house ministry of First Baptist Church in 1972. It hasn’t had its coffee house function for a number of years and it has a date with the wrecker probably before the end of 2018 as part of First Baptist’s redevelopment plans to place an enormous residential tower on the property in the next few years.
Hobbit House was the brain child of Rev. “Padre” J. Willox Duncan (then, Visitation Minister and later Minister Emeritus until his death in 2002) and Rev. Roy Bell (Senior Minister, 1970-1981). The church budgeted $24,000 for the refit of the old residence.
When Hobbit opened in 1972, 40 volunteer staff were trained by Bell. Programming included film presentations (Monday nights), tea times (Thursday afternoons), handicapped gatherings (Wednesdays), and youth gatherings (Friday/Saturday nights). By 1974, there were, on average, 400 people/week coming through Hobbit’s doors and there were more than 60 committed volunteers. A Sunday lunch was added that year; that would remain a feature of Hobbit’s programming for much of of its remaining ministry life.
By 1987, average attendance at Hobbit was about 250/week, 15-20% of whom were ‘guests’ (i.e., neither members nor adherents of FBC).
Some of the “Tuesday Lunch Bunch”, volunteers who would prepare the soup/sandwiches for whoever showed up. These volunteers, as I recall, were always smiley and friendly and became good friends among themselves, as well, I’m told. Photo courtesy Linda Zlotnik. n.d.
As he was preparing to leave FBC and Hobbit leadership in 1988 (to accept a ministry call at Kitsilano Christian Community Church), Rev. Jeremy Bell described Hobbit as “the church’s living room” into which the West End community was invited.
The number of people using Hobbit continued to drop in the ’90s, as did the number of volunteers. At the same time, the ministry became more institutionalized and, as a result, less volunteer-driven.
Finally, in 2002, the Hobbit ‘Director’ position was changed to FBC’s ‘Hospitality Coordinator’ and in 2005, two of the longest-standing Hobbit programs were dropped: the Sunday lunch and Friday dinner.
Hobbit House continued to be a viable location of ministry activities for a few years after 2005, but it was no longer FBC’s “living room”. It was more like the church’s “basement” — a place where the family could meet, but not a place into which you’d invite the neighbours on a regular basis.
Before the end of 2018, Hobbit House – together with the church’s two rental properties, one on either side of Hobbit, plus the Youth House² – are expected to be demolished to make way for the residential tower which the church has decided will be built on the lots west of the church building.
“If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.”
— J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit.
_______
Notes
¹Interestingly, there is no record of 1025 Nelson Street in the online Historical Vancouver Building Permits database. This may be due to the fact that the online records begin in 1901. There is evidence in the 1898 city directory that 1025 Nelson Street was extant in that year. I was briefly excited to see that an early resident of 1025 was Norman Caple (a notable early Vancouver photographer). I was pretty sure that I’d seen a photo of the Caple family in front of their home. But upon checking CVA (and VPL and the Royal BC Museum), I saw that the family image I recalled was at one of their earlier homes (on Hamilton Street).
²The rental property to the west of Hobbit is today known as The Rivendell (1045 Nelson); this is a 1954-built 3-storey walk-up apartment block of which so many could be found in Vancouver at one time. The Rivendell was known as Geneva Apartments at the time it was purchased by FBC ca.1998. The church has owned 1021/23 since 1988.
Well before my day, there were also homes, presumably resembling 1021/23, on the lots where the FBC and YMCA parking lots are today; these were at 1011, 1015, 1017, and 1019 (the church structure itself was at 1009 Nelson until the 1930s, I believe, when the address was changed to 969 Burrard, instead). When these lots were purchased by the church isn’t clear (with the exception of 1011 Nelson, which was bought in 1956). The church maintained a manse at 1017 Nelson in the earliest years of the new church building (Nelson and Burrard). This home housed only one pastor as far as I know: Rev. Dr. H(enry) Francis Perry (July 1909-February 1915). (There were other church-owned residences for FBC ministers, I’m certain, but that subject will have to await its own future post.
This is a sequel to the previous post, MIA: The Loss of a 20-foot Painting. In this post, we will sketch a few of the biographical details about artist, Rolph Blakstad, and his wife, Mary Isobel Blakstad (nee Leiterman), during their time in Vancouver.
Early Years
Rolph (aka Rolf) Kenneth Blakstad (1929-2012) was the only son of Peter and Olive Blakstad. Peter (1884-1967) and Olive (1897-1981) were born and raised in Norway and they later came to North America where they met and married. Peter was an architect, master builder and craftsman; Olive, as far as I can tell, didn’t work outside the family home.¹
Ralph Blakstad (1947). The Island (painted in tempura). Image reproduced from Artmaking in Two Vancouver High Schools 1920 to 1950 by D. Wendy Louise Stephenson. UBC Ph.D. thesis, 2005.
Rolph was born August 24, 1929. He had one sibling, an elder sister, by the name of Gloria Solveig Blakstad (1922-2001). She married Rollie Pearson (an engineer who specialized in building bridges), and the couple made a home, with their two boys, in San Carlos, California.
Rolph grew up and attended public schools in Vancouver, graduating from Kitsilano High School in 1947. He was artistically involved there, producing art work for school yearbooks and being involved in the high school Decorating Club. The school also gave him an entrée to the Vancouver Art School, located near the Marine Building downtown, on Saturday mornings. One of Blakstad’s pieces from his time at Kits High appears at right.
Early Fifties
After graduating from Kits High, Rolph began an undergraduate course of studies at UBC (B.A. ’51). In 1950, he designed the set for the UBC Players Club’s production of the Robertson Davies play, Eros at Breakfast. In 1951, he designed the set for another Players Club production, The MaleAnimal, a James Thurber comedy.
1951 would be a ‘red letter’ year for Rolph. That was the year he graduated from UBC with an Arts Degree. He was also awarded the Emily Carr Scholarship (in the sum of $1200) which he would apply to studies of old master artists in Florence, Italy later in the year. He would leave for Italy in the Fall accompanied by his bride, Mary Leiterman (1929-1996), another UBC graduate, whom he married in August.
They returned to Vancouver from Europe sometime in 1953 and Rolph got work as a set designer with CBC Vancouver television station affiliate, CBUT.² In a letter from Mary Blakstad to her sister, Elaine Campbell, in May 1954, she mentions that:
Rolph has been working on a design for a mural for the entrance hall of the TV building. It will be above the switchboard – 6 x 12′. TV is the theme, of course, and he is doing it in a rather realistic style.
— Excerpt of a letter from Mary Blakstad to Elaine Campbell (nee Leiterman), dated May 20, 1954. Excerpt kindly provided by Sabrina Blakstad.
Rolph Blakstad. Head of a Girl. Graphite on wove paper.
In 1955, Rolph was invited to submit a piece of his work to the National Gallery. The decision as to which piece he’d choose is described in a letter from Mary Blackstad to Elaine Campbell:
Rolph was very busy painting all over Christmas. He took time out to eat Christmas dinner and hardly time to open presents. He was getting some paintings ready for Lawren Harris to see. Mr Harris came up to see Rolph’s work and suggest two paintings to submit for the selection being sent from Vancouver to the National Gallery exhibit. Rolph had 2 nice ones finished. Both quite large heads of a woman in different styles. They are quite different from Rolph’s other work. These are much more realistic.
— Letter from Mary Blakstad to Elaine Campbell (nee Leiterman). Dated January 17, no year shown, but it seems probable it was 1955. Excerpt kindly provided by Sabrina Blakstad.
He sold his Head of a Girl to Canada’s National Gallery in 1955.
Untitled Brock Hall Mural and “Kitsilano Garden”
By late 1955 or early ’56, RKB had completed the 20-foot square, untitled forest scene that was purchased by UBC’s Alma Mater Society (AMS) – for $300, reportedly – and hung in what served as the AMS space, Brock Hall’s lounge, from the late ’50s until the SUB (Student Union Building) was constructed in 1972. It is this lost work that was the subject of the previous post. I’ve been able to establish the creation date of December 1955 or January 1956 for the Brock Hall mural with help from an excerpt of correspondence written by Mary Blakstad:
Rolph has been painting quite steadily and has his work in several exhibitions. He will be showing with 3 other Vancouver artists [Bruno Bobak, Joseph Plaskett, and Gordon Smith] in an exhibit at the Toronto Art Gallery early in the new year. And he has just finished a 3 man show [in addition to Blakstad, Herbert Gilbert and Ronald Kelly] at the University gallery [UBC] and has contributed to many other exhibits. He is also working on a mural for the university student lounge. (Emphasis mine).
— From a Christmas card dated December 7, 1955
from Mary Blakstad to Janet and Olaf Pedersen (family friends).
Excerpt kindly provided by Sabrina Blakstad.
The Brock Hall mural has been missing for decades. The most recent direct reference to the mural was in a letter from the Chair of the Senate Committee on University Art to the Students’ Council president in May 1968. An excerpt follows:
At the last meeting of the Senate Committee on University Art which has the task of looking after works of art on the campus, the question was brought up of the disposition of the large mural by Rolf Blackstad now hanging at the south end of the Main Lounge in Brock Hall.
The mural was commissioned eleven or twelve years ago and was paid for out of student funds. My committee has therefore no jurisdiction over it but the Committee felt that this was a very handsome piece of work and that it would make an excellent focal point in a room in the new Student Union Building (it is our understanding that Brock Hall is going to be turned into offices, and therefore the mural will in all likelihood have to be removed from it present location).
— Excerpt of a letter from Sam Black, Chair, Senate Committee on University
Art to David Zirnhelt, President, Students’ Council, UBC. May 17, 1968.
Excerpt kindly provided by Tessa Grogan, AMS Archives Assistant.
The December 7, 1955 letter from Mary Blakstad to the Pedersens mentions the Brock Hall mural (the “mural for the university student lounge”) and also another painting which was apparently being worked on by Blakstad at about the same time (for the “exhibit at the Toronto Art Gallery”, today known as the Art Gallery of Ontario). This Toronto Art Gallery work appears below.
Rolph Blakstad, 1956. Owned by Olaf and Janet Pedersen of Vancouver for many years. Known as the “Kitsilano Garden” painting by current owner, Sabrina Blakstad. Photo courtesy of Sabrina Blakstad. Note: the trees shown in the bottom right corner (in abstraction) look to me as though they were Monkey Puzzle Trees. Sabrina Blakstad has confirmed with her aunt, Phyllis King (a sister of Mary’s), that there were such trees in the yard of the Kitsilano Garden.
Back side of Blakstad’s “Kitsilano Garden”. Shows part of a ripped Art Gallery of Toronto label. Photo courtesy of Sabrina Blakstad. Elsewhere on the back of this painting, according to Sabrina Blakstad, is pencilled $85.
The subject matter as well as the remembered palette of the Brock Hall mural seem to have been very similar to that of Blakstad’s “Kitsilano Garden”. June Binkert, secretary to the UBC President’s Committee on University Art, who searched in vain for the missing work until she retired in the early 1990s, recalled that the Brock Hall mural was “in shades of pink, red, blue, and green” — not unlike the palette that was used on the Kitsilano Garden shown above (UBC Reports. November 29, 1990, p. 10.) In the absence of a colour photograph that shows the Brock Hall mural, therefore, the Kitsilano Garden work may offer some clues as to its appearance.
Sabrina Blakstad’s aunt, Phyllis King, Mary Blakstad’s sister, believes that the Kitsilano Garden work is an abstract rendering of the mid-’50s home rented by Mary’s and Phyllis’ parents, Douglas and Mattie Leiterman at 3857 Point Grey Road. Rolph and Mary lived in the attic of this house when they returned to Vancouver in the 1953-’56 period. Phyllis and then-husband Allan King, also shared the attic of the home. Sabrina Blakstad reported a conversation she had with Phyllis:
Phyllis said she seems to remember the garden ran down to the shore – the house fronted onto the street, but at the back the garden was very big and the bottom of the garden got a bit wild and went down to the water.
— Sabrina Blakstad recalling a conversation she had with Phyllis King (nee Leiterman) in an email message to the author, November 2, 2018.
The house that was attached to the Kitsilano Garden seems to have been the subject of another Canadian artist, Frederick H. Varley (shown at right). This work, called From Kitsilano was made in 1932, well before the Blakstads’ or the Leitermans’ time there.
Map Data: Google 2018.
The Kits Garden and the house were demolished not too long after the Blakstads left Vancouver to live permanently in Europe. The property was purchased by Jericho Tennis Courts and the home (and garden) was re-developed by the early 1960s into the area that today is populated principally by several tennis courts.
After Vancouver
In 1956, Rolph and Mary Blakstad arrived on the Spanish island of Ibiza and remained there for the rest of their lives. Although he continued to create art in Ibiza, their move there seemed to prompt a real shift in Rolph’s interests. In the late ’50s and 1960s, he freelanced as a film maker. His last career shift entailed Rolph establishing an architectural firm in 1967 which today is run by his son, Rolf, and is called Blakstad Design Consultants.
Rolph Blakstad died April 2, 2012 in Ibiza.
Notes
¹I’m very appreciative of information generously provided by Rolph and Mary’s daughter, Sabrina Blakstad, about her parents and extended family.
UBC 1.1/2648-2. The Brock Hall Lounge on UBC Campus. Chamber Music concert. 1960. No attribution. This photo shows the complete art work discussed in this post on the far wall. (Note: A crop of the artwork from this image appears below in this post).
This is a tale of discovery. Of learning what a painting was called, who created it, and, perhaps, what became of it. The story began with the photo shown below.
Canadian Congress of Corrections meal at UBC, May 24-29, 1959. Fred Sunday photo. Author’s print.
I have a peculiar passion for Fred Sunday’s panoramic images. I don’t know why, exactly. More often than not, they don’t have much of a historical story to tell (at least, not to me). They are principally group shots of huge numbers of people, quite often taken on the steps of the Vancouver Courthouse (today’s Vancouver Art Gallery).
But the photo of the Congress of Corrections meetings (a gift from my old friend, Wes) was different — initially, mainly because of where the image was made; later because of a bit of an art mystery buried within it.
Sunday identified the photo as having been made at UBC campus, but didn’t specify the building. I am familiar with many of UBC’s buildings as they were in the early 1990s, when I was doing graduate work there, but I did not recall a space that matched the one portrayed in the panorama.
Clues
So I approached UBC archivist, Erwin Wodarczak, who has helped on other occasions to identify images of structures on campus. He knew immediately where my photo was made: Brock Hall.¹
While I was ‘batting a thousand’ with Erwin, I inquired if, by chance, he could identify the art which was just visible on the far wall of the image. Sorry, No. But he had a suggestion: Contact the staff at UBC’s Alma Mater Society (AMS) Archives.
I heard back the next day from Tessa Grogan, Archives Assistant at the AMS. She wasn’t able definitively to identify the painting or the artist. But she did point me in the right general direction² with the first article I saw that seemed to refer to the painting. It was in The Ubyssey, March 9, 1956. It is reproduced in part below:
Polled Students Hate New Painting
The most favourable reaction to the new painting hung in Brock lounge is apathy. In a poll of Brock Loungers, taken at noon Thursday, the mildest comment received was “I can’t stand it.”. . . . One student excused the artist saying “it’s so big he couldn’t get close enough to see what he was doing,” while another congratulated him, saying “he deserves commendation for his salesmanship.”
The fact that the painting is title-less inspired many aspiring young art critics to attempt naming it. Possible titles ranged from “Drunken Peacocks During Mating Season” to “Navel Contemplating Tangerine Orange.”
Several students said that, due to a sign hung directly under the painting, they were under the impression that the title is “Lounge Will be Closed at 1:00 p.m. Today . . . . “
I’m not a huge fan of abstract art, but I must say that my reaction to the painting couldn’t be in greater contrast to that of those mid-’50s students: I really like the piece!
The paragraph which includes the typically ‘studenty’ witticism about naming the piece “Drunken Peacocks…” made me wonder if they might have been referring to the painting that appears in my photo. But before I could take my “wondering” any further, I’d need more evidence; and, ideally, it would be good to discover the name of the artist.
In Search Of . . . the Artist
I went to UBC’s Open Collections website to search for other mentions of ‘painting’ or ‘Brock’ around the mid-’50s. It didn’t take too long before I hit pay-dirt by finding this wee blurb in the 1955 Alumni Chronicle:
“UBC graduate Rolf Blakstad, B. A. ’51, will take time out from his C.B.U.-TV designing [at the time, C.B.U. was the local CBC station] to paint a 20′ mural for Brock Hall . . . .”
This was a breakthrough. But not conclusive. So I kept plugging away with my search. Now, however, I was equipped with a possible artist’s name: Rolf Blakstad.
Next, I found a write-up in the September 20, 1955 issue of The Ubyssey. It is shown at right. The article revealed that the Blakstad painting was square and very large (20 by 20 feet). That seemed to link up with the painting shown above.
By the time I’d finished reading the September Ubyseey article, I was all but certain that the Blakstad painting and the one that appeared in the first images in this post were one and the same.
But I wanted more than ‘all but’ certainty, so I began to see what information I could glean from the other end — about Mr. Blakstad. Was it possible that he was still living?
From to a Google search, I learned that Mr. Blakstad had been living (since shortly after painting the “untitled” image) on the island of Ibiza (just off the coast of Spain). It seems Blakstad had been in business as an architect on the island for many years and, most recently, had been working with his youngest son, whose name is Rolf (as opposed, confusingly, to his father’s apparently new-ish name spelling of Rolph). Mr. Blakstad, Sr. (b. 1929) seemed still to be living, so I tried sending an email message c/o his son at Blakstad Design Consultants. Sadly, I have since learned from his son that Mr. Blakstad passed away in 2012.
Eureka
So I pressed ahead with whatever I could learn in Vancouver. I had sent an email to UBC’s art gallery, the Belkin Gallery, at an earlier stage of my research — before I thought I knew the name of the artist. I decided I should update them, now that I had Mr. Blakstad’s name. I had a reply from Jana Tyner at the Belkin saying they had found nothing, yet, to help me with my search, but they appreciated having the artist’s probable name.
Meanwhile, I spent most of a morning at VPL at the task of looking up art auction records from the 1970s and ’80s. Nothing.
I was looking in newspaper databases to see if there were any clues there, when it occurred to me that I hadn’t done a check of the UBC Open Collections website using Blakstad’s name. So I tried that. There wasn’t much on the results page that I hadn’t seen before, but there was one entry from November 29, 1990 which I’d never seen. I didn’t have high hopes, as 1990 was from a period substantially after Blakstad had left Canada for Ibiza. Chances were that it pertained to another Blakstad, unrelated to the artist.
But the article proved to be the big eureka moment of the search:
I read it. And then, not quite believing what I’d read, I re-read it.
June Binkert had been, it seemed — a year before my wife and I had arrived at Vancouver and 28 years before I’d laid eyes on a photo of the art work — every bit as obsessed as I’d become with tracking the thing down!
I inquired of Jana at the Belkin Gallery if Ms Binkert were still living. Alas, no. Apparently, she’d made no headway in her 1990 campaign to unearth the painting.³ And nobody else has taken up the case since her retirement that year, evidently.
But Jana did have a copy of a piece of correspondence which Ms Binkert had sent around to multiple contacts on campus, asking if anyone had seen the art work. With that I will conclude this post.
Perhaps I will have cause at some point to write an update to this post, should someone someday unroll Blakstad’s officially untitled “stylized forest scene” within some darkened storage space.
For now, this will need to remain an unfinished story.
From the records of the UBC Art Committee. By June Binkert, Secretary to the President’s Committee on University Art. n.d. (1990).
Notes
¹The chamber group was playing in what was then called the Brock Hall “lounge”. Sometime in the 1970s or ’80s, the lounge was modernized and divided up into office space for counselling and other services. Erwin has said that in the last 10 years or so, the partitions were removed during renovations that served to open up the space again. What was originally called the lounge can serve, once again, as a social/reception area.
²One of Tessa’s helpful services was directing me to several photos that better showed the entire painting. Those images included the first one that appears in this post.
³According to a follow-up article in UBC Reports in 1991, the campaign didn’t turn up any good information on the painting. Binkert is quoted: “No one seems to know what happened to it. I would have thought that someone would have seen it after all these years.”
UBC Library Digital Collections. Trudeau tours Museum of Anthropology June 1976 (Also in image: Douglas Kenny (UBC President 1975-83), left, and Arthur Erickson (MOA Architect), right.
UBC Archives Photograph Collection. Trudeau (with unidentified man) at the commissioning of the 520 MeV cyclotron at the TRIUMF particle accelerator facility at UBC. February 9, 1976. No photo attribution.
I’ve been remembering, recently, the dominant national political personality during my formative years, Pierre Elliot Trudeau. I found this rather good photo in UBC Library’s Digital Collection of his June 1976 visit to UBC. Here, he is visiting UBC shortly after the official opening of the Museum of Anthropology’s new facility (along with UBC President, Douglas Kenny, and MOA architect, Arthur Erickson). The main reason he was in town was for the official opening of the UN Habitat Forum.
Trudeau made at least two trips to Vancouver in 1976: the later trip in June, and the trip portrayed below, in February, of an inspection by federal officials of Habitat, then under construction.
2011-130.0408 – Trudeau on site of Habitat Forum shaking hands with Habitat designer/carpenter Michael Malcolm in Hangar 6. Feb 1976. Erol Baykal photo
If you would like to engage in a bit of time travel, you will find below a couple links to CBC’s digital archive collection that pertain to PET.
First, here is a CBC Radio episode from 1957 (more than a decade before Trudeau became national Liberal Party leader) called “Fighting Words” (complete with the today-bizarre remarks by the host pertaining to ‘civilizing the Eskimos’). This quiz show, hosted by Nathan Cohen, tested guests’ knowledge of quotations. In this episode, guest panelists included Trudeau and his ultimate nemesis, Rene Levesque. (But political careers were in the future; at the time, Levesque and Trudeau were both journalists).
And, secondly, this is a salute to PET’s passion for foreign affairs: a report on his trip in 1973 to the People’s Republic of China, including a visit with the ‘Great Helmsman‘, who would die in 1976, leaving in his wake the messy succession problems – remember the ‘Gang of Four‘? – which typically occur upon the passing of dictators.
CVA 677-178 – Harpur’s Orchestra. ca 1900. Horace would have been the gent seated at the piano (second from left) with his eyes closed to the camera’s flashbulb. I’m forced to make “educated guesses” at the names of the others (based on a couple of press accounts): from left: Bob Chance (violin), HWH (piano), Johnny Rushton (cornet). and Ed Stillwell (percussion).
Horace William Harpur was a prominent Vancouver organist, pianist, and band leader in the 1890s and beyond.
Family
H. W. Harpur was born in England in 1869 to Rev. George Harpur and and Miriam Browne. Rev. Harpur was initially a Congregational minister and later was Vicar of South Clifton in Nottinghamshire (a Church of England post, I presume).
The first year that mention is made of Horace Harpur in Vancouver directories is 1891; so he seems to have come to the city as an adult of about 22 years. It isn’t clear what musical training he received before emigrating. His occupation is described in the 1891 directory as a “musician” at Carter’s Temple of Music — located, for awhile, at the New York Block on Granville near Georgia St.
In 1894, Harpur was married to Annie Barker (also born in England) by pioneer Congregational minister, James W. Pedley. Horace was 24; Annie 20. One of the witnesses¹ at their wedding was Fred W. Dyke, another early Vancouver musician who would start his own music business in the city and would become director of music at the Vancouver Opera House. Harpur and Dyke would in 1901 be two of eight charter members of the Musicians Mutual Protective Union, Local 145 of the American Federation of Musicians.² (Fred Dyke and his brother, George, figure significantly in Harpur’s career).
Horace and Annie had a family of five: Reginald (1895), Norah (1897), Constance Miriam (1899), Harold (1901), and Vega (1905). For a few of their early years, the family resided at 247 Georgia (roughly across the street from what is today the CBC building), but by the early years of the 20th century, they were living at 974 Cardero (a home that is still standing today). Annie and Horace would live out their lives at the Cardero St. home.
Church Organist
In the middle and later 1890s, the Harpurs were affiliated with (if not members of) the Congregational Church (500 Georgia St), where Horace was the organist for a time.
Harpur, like other musicians of his day, couldn’t afford to tie himself too closely to any single Christian church. Judging from occasional press references in the Vancouver Daily World, while he initially played organ for the Congregationalists (which also included responsibility for leading the choir each week), he later moved to the better-attended Anglican churches in the city which were probably in a better position to remunerate him than was the relatively small Congregational church.
Crop of Ch P31 – Interior of First Congregational Church Vancouver, B.C. 1890. Note: The diminutive organ, where Harpur doubtless played, is in the centre, front of the sanctuary, flanked by a few hard chairs that were probably occupied by choir members during services
At a concert in 1896, to raise funds for the new organ at Christ Church (the church didn’t yet have cathedral status; that happened in 1929), Harpur was one of the featured organists. He rated pretty well in this delightfully brutal review in the Province:
The sacred concert held in Christ Church last week . . . was very largely attended, a substantial sum being contributed at the offertory towards the organ fund. Parts of the programme were most enjoyable, but the items of which it was composed might with advantage have been reduced by a third; nine organ solos in one evening are a weariness to the flesh, especially when only two or three of them are worth listening to at all. The playing of Mr. Horace Harpur was good, particularly in Shubert’s “Pensees Musicales No. 2” and also in “Spanish Chant” (Smart), though I must confess to a strong antipathy towards the ragging out of a simple air in thirds and runs and trills and all the other musical contortions known to one’s childish days when “Home, Sweet Home with variations” was par excellence our “show piece” . . . .Mrs. Burns-Dixon sang the same two solos from the “Messiah” in which we heard her last winter. The first one “He Shall Feed His Flock” was passable if a trifle flat, but over the second “How Beautiful are the Feet” let us draw the veil of silence.
— The Province 4 April 1896, p. 230
At least Harpur’s playing wasn’t found so wanting by the reviewer (as was poor Mrs. Burns-Dixon’s singing) as to merit the “veil of silence” treatment!
Music Teacher
In order to feed and house his growing family, Harpur couldn’t rely solely on the income from various church organist positions he held over the years (at the Congregational Chuch, and later at St. James Church and Christ Church).
By 1896, his occupation appeared in city directories as “music teacher”. In 1897, Harpur joined the 5-person faculty of Vancouver Music Academy, the city’s first private conservatory. It had been started by Fred Dyke’s brother, George (Fred wasn’t on staff; he was busy earning a living as an entrepreneur at a music shop in the Arcade; this was located where the Dominion Building is today); the Academy continued until 1902, when its name was changed to the Vancouver Conservatory of Music.³
Harpur continued to offer private music lessons until about 1926.
Dance Band Leader
While his teaching gig was a source of steady income, Harpur became best known from the late 1890s until the outbreak of the War, as the leader of “Harpur’s Orchestra.” This was essentially a dance band of four or sometimes five players. One of the earliest appearances of a band of which Harpur was part (but not identified as the “leader”, per se) was at a reception held in Vancouver for the fifth Canadian Prime Minister, Sir Mackenzie Bowell in 1895. The band comprised, in addition to Harpur, Fred Dyke, W. Brand, Fred Cope, and J. Grant. The orchestra’s play list for the reception was included in the press account of the reception in the Vancouver Daily World. This was unusual. Equally uncommon was for the press to report who was playing in the band. The only other occasion I could find (in addition to the 1895 reception) was the 1902 Easter Ball sponsored by the Victorian Order of Nurses: H. W. Harpur (piano), John Cronshaw (clarinet), Charles Baylis (cornet), and F. Highland (bass) (VDW 2 April 1902, p. 5).
Harpur was evidently a capable composer in addition to his other musical abilities. Neither of his two compositions that we can identify today have survived the test of time, however. One was the item mentioned above – the waltz which he called Dream of the Sea. It was published in Vancouver by Fred Dyke in 1895.¤ The other was published in 1916 by an unknown publisher and was called The Army of the Empire.∞
Great War
This raises the surprising fact (to me, at any rate) that Harpur enlisted in 1916 – two years into the Great War – to join the 231st Battalion as band sergent. That unit was apparently later broken up, however, and he was drafted to the 72nd Battalion of the Seaforth Highlanders. He was getting pretty long in the tooth for such things (he was 47); he plainly wanted to ‘do his bit’ for King and country.
He survived the war (better than did his eldest boy, Reginald, who was “severely wounded” at Passchendaele). Upon returning home to Vancouver, Horace picked up the band ‘baton’ again for a few gigs. But, judging from the few press accounts of Harpur’s Orchestra in the post-war years, there wasn’t as much interest in employing his kind of band to play their kind of music. He seems to have finally put away his baton by the year of Annie’s death: 1933.
Final Occupation
In 1927, Harpur took up a new occupation. It was still music-related, mind you, and drew upon skills he likely already had: he became a piano tuner and repairer. He seems to have tuned pianos for much of the rest of his life; certainly until 1934.
Horace died in 1937.
Notes
¹The other witness at their wedding was Eva Fewster. She was a music teacher. There is evidence here that Eva and Annie Harpur maintained a friendship for a number of years following the wedding of Mr. and Mrs. Harpur; also that the Harpurs maintained a connection with the Congregationalists at least as late as 1912.
²BC Federationist. 6 July 1912. The charter members of the union were: W. H. Harpur (misspelled in the Federationist as “Harper”), W. Brand, R. Chance, Fred T. Cope, C. Frey, and J. H. Smith.
³Dale McIntosh. History of Music in British Columbia: 1850-1950. 1989, p. 180. The first staff members of the Academy were: George J. Dyke (violin, guitar, mandolin), A. P. Freimuth (violin, viola, wind instruments, orchestra), Miss H. Bremer Bruun (piano), Miss M. Carr Walton (singing), and Horace Harpur (organ, piano, theory).
¤McIntosh, p. 234, 247.
∞The Morrisey Mention, November 30, 1916. “Military Mention“, p. 1. Digital copy available from UBC’s Open Collection.
CVA 113-5 – North side False Creek looking east from Park Lane. April 1913. This is the only photo identified by CVA as being of or from Park Lane.
Park Lane was one of the early residential districts in Vancouver; it later was a proposed ‘red light’ district; the homes of the Lane were destroyed to help make way for the Union railway depot; the depot ultimately also succumbed to the wrecker; and it is set to become the site of the new St. Paul’s Hospital within a few years.
Like Mayfair, London?
According to Vancouver’s first archivist, J. S. Matthews, Park Lane was originally a fashionable residential district in early Vancouver — hence the swish name after the street in the Mayfair district in London, England.¹
“Wait,” I can hear you muttering. “Where was this fancy lane?”
Would you believe it was a single block stretch just east of Westminster Ave (behind what is now the 1000 block of Main St, between Prior St at the north and what is today known as National Ave. at its southern extreme? The residential dwellings were located principally on the east side of Park Lane (which is now called Station Street). This meant that the homes had a water view. And, according to Matthews, they also had ready access to a lovely beach.²
“Hold on,” you interject. “This is too much! A water view and a nice beach?! This is the block behind the Ivanhoe Hotel, isn’t it? That’s nowhere near any water!”
Nope, you’re quite right. Nowhere near water since ca1914, when this part of False Creek was filled in with land that was formerly part of the “Grandview Cut”. But we are getting ahead of ourselves.
Here is a map to help you get your bearings in the very different pre-1914 landscape that included Park Lane.
Vancouver Fire Insurance Map Book. Dakin Publishing Co., San Francisco: November 1889. UBC Rare Book Room (not available online).
You will notice on this very early fire insurance map that “Park Lane” was identified as “Park Ave.” This is the name used in the 1890 city directory, too. It was changed to “Park Lane” by 1892, however, and remained so until the City officially changed the name of the street to Station Street in 1926 (quite some time after the first train left Union station in 1918).
I wish there were photos of Park Lane which I could include to give some sense of the homes that made up the neighbourhood. But I haven’t been able to find any. The closest I could come (with thanks to Robert) was the drawn map shown below (1898).
CVA – Crop of Map 547 – Panoramic view of City of Vancouver, 1898. Vancouver World. Annotations are the author’s.
My impression from reading classified ads in editions of the Vancouver Daily World from the 1890s and early 1900s (advertising homes for sale or rent along the Lane), is that there was quite a variety of homes along the lane. Everything from “shacks” to a 9-room (Victorian-style?) home — complete with wharf extending into False Creek.
NIMBY to NIMMP (Not in my Mount Pleasant!)
Life along Park Lane seemed to proceed normally until 1906. That was the year that City Council decided to get into the moving business. Not furniture moving, mind you: people moving!
Until this time, prostitution in Vancouver was kept to E. Pender St. (called Dupont, at that time); this was known as the “restricted district” (what we’d call these days, the “red light district”). From what I can discern, prostitution at the time was not principally a street-walking occupation. It was, if you’ll pardon the expression, more of a “cottage industry” — carried on within dwellings (aka, brothels).
So, the City decided to move the ladies of E. Pender elsewhere. But why? There was very little attention paid to this (to me, obvious) question in press accounts of the time. Which leads me to believe that the answer was believed at the time to be self-evident. That led me to the conclusion that it was the usual reason: money (and in Vancouver, that has always meant the same thing as real estate values). I suspect that the value of real estate in E. Pender had risen recently and that led the city to kick out those who were not likely to be contributors to further escalation.
Whatever the reason(s) why the ladies weren’t allowed to remain on E. Pender, they were being told to move to the new restricted district.
Guess where?
Yup, Park Lane.
A brief public furore ensued upon the city’s decision to move the ladies to the Lane. The owners and residents of Park Lane didn’t seem to object to the City’s proposal. (Or if some of them did, they didn’t make loud noises about their concerns).
The main source of the loudest concern seemed to come from another neighbourhood: Mount Pleasant. Mount Pleasant was just across the Westminster (Main St) Bridge from the Lane and, so, just a few minutes away from the Lane by horse (or a few minutes more by shanks mare). What were the concerns of the denizens of Mount Pleasant?
Those who were making the loudest noises believed that prostitution generally was a social evil and that the ladies ought not be welcomed in Vancouver anywhere.
But if the ladies must be somewhere within the city, they certainly shouldn’t be in Park Lane. The reason: Park Lane was just off Westminster/Main, the bridge of which at the time was really the only means of easy access between Mount Pleasant and downtown.
Therefore, the major motive of those in Mount Pleasant whose knickers were in a twist over the re-location of the ladies to Park Lane was not greatly different from those who wanted them out of E. Pender: Money (or, what amounts to the same thing, “trade”). Mount Pleasant residents were afraid that the presence of this “moral depravity” just on the other side of the Westminster Bridge would serve to reduce the quality and quantity of trade that made its way up to Mount Pleasant.
According to this site, the noise-makers were effective in getting the City to change its policy regarding the move of the restricted district. It would remain in the E. Pender vicinity for the time being; however it would move off that actual street to Canton and Shanghai Alleys.
In any case, Park Lane had a very limited lifespan going forward.
Goodbye Park Lane
Park Lane residents had just a few years from the proposed move of the restricted district before their homes had a date with the wrecking ball.
By 1912, the City of Vancouver had a deal with the Great Northern Railway (and Northern Pacific) that involved the GNR infilling part of False Creek and then establishing a Union depot on the infill (later, Canadian Northern Railway would do likewise just south of Union station; the CNR station is now known as the Pacific Central Station).
Infill and depot construction was underway by 1914, and the first train to leave the completed Union station (Fred Townley, architect) was a Northern Pacific train on January 1918. By 1965, Union Depot had evidently served its purpose; it, too was demolished.
2010-006.103 – Wrecking Great Northern Depot – Vancouver Feb 1965. Ernie H. Reksten. The photographer would have been standing with his back to (and parallel with) Park Lane for this photo.
2010-006.104 – Great Northern Depot. 1965. Ernie H Reksten. This photo was made from a more oblique angle (toward the south – closer to the (then) CNR Depot. Union Depot’s freight sheds are visible running roughly perpendicular with the depot.
Since the demolition of Union depot, the land has been largely neglected. In recent years, it seems to have been used as a surplus lot for automobile dealers.
But plans are afoot for the former Park Lane and its waterfront. St. Paul’s Hospital will move to this site by about 2024.
Notes
¹Elizabeth Walker. Street Names of Vancouver. p. 116
CVA 1376-17 – White Spot Drive-In Restaurant with Lunch Counter at 850 Burrard Street. 1952? Werner Lenggenhager photo.
This is an unusual photo.
I’ve seen other photos taken from Smithe or thereabouts on Burrard Street (such as the one that appears below) with the White Spot neon signage displayed. But this is the only image I’ve seen of the actual lunch counter and parking lot where folks could switch on their headlights and receive ‘car service’.
This outlet of the now-ubiquitous restaurant chain seemed to have been located at 850 Burrard Street (near to where the Italian Kitchen is today). The image above was taken with the camera facing northeast (you can make out the Hotel Vancouver in the background).
The photo was made by Werner Lenggenhager (1899-1988), who, according to CVA’s very brief bio, was a Seattle man who once worked for Boeing. The photo bears the marks of a non-resident. It just isn’t the sort of shot which most Vancouverites in the 1950s would have taken the trouble to make.
This link shows Jack Cullen (and occasionally with his wife and also with his cigarette!) doing ads for White Spots and other businesses for KVOS Bellingham (now a station of Me-TV).
Thanks, Werner!
Crop pf CVA 2008-022.045 – Downtown Vancouver street scene with BC Electric building and neon White Spot signage. 1958.
Prof. Alan C. Cairns, Political Scientist. (1930-1918). UBC Archives Photo. UBC 44.1/2270 – 1993
The fact that Professor Alan Cairns was on the faculty of UBC’s Political Science Department was one of the principal reasons that I came to Vancouver and UBC to do my M.A. And so it is with sadness that I join others in reporting his passing on August 27, 2018 (b. 1930).
You may hear his address to the 1998 UBC Convocation on the occasion on which an honorary degree was conferred upon him. His remarks begin at about the 16 minutes, 40 seconds mark. Needless to say, his remarks lasted longer than the requested “2 to 4 minutes”; he took 10 minutes, still substantially less than the 50 minutes which he considered his due!
One of my fond recollections of Professor Cairns (and he would always be that to me —never Alan!) were his regular quotations of baseball great, Yogi Berra.
My personal favourite of all of his written work is “The Judicial Committee and its Critics” (one of his essays in Constitution, Government and Society in Canada).
I will remember Professor Cairns as being (like other mentors of mine, Professor Akira Ichikawa of the University of Lethbridge and Professor Ken Carty of UBC), a gentle humanist.
This account by Michael Valpy is a good summary of Professor Cairns’ varied life and work.
CVA 14-1 – Crowd at the site of Champion and White warehouse (935-941 Main Street) after destroyed by fire. July 1912. Lafond’s Pool Rooms (909 Main) would have been just north of this.
Alfred Lafond was born in Quebec to Joseph and Genevieve on March 1, 1849. Alfred married Azilda (b. 1863). In 1883, a daughter was born to the couple. They named her Lodivine. A son, Albert, was born in 1896.
Alfred travelled west when he was in his 50s. It isn’t clear whether his wife and family accompanied him, although Lodivine died in the Lower Mainland (she was married to Henry Joseph Allen).
Lafond first came to the attention of the Vancouver public in 1902.¹ He seems to have landed work as a “hotelkeeper” or manager (not the proprietor) of the Golden Gate Hotel (the building still stands today as an SRO with the Two Parrots bar at street level) at SE corner Granville and Davie Street. Lafond received his 5 seconds of fame that year, with some sort of new board game that he’d invented. I’ll allow the Daily World to explain:
Lafond’s Invention — Alfred Lafond, who resides at the rear of the Golden Gate hotel, Granville Street [at 662 Davie], has invented a game board, which looks likely to ere long become very popular. On the centre of the board are four gongs over a similar number of round holes. A red billiard ball is placed at the head of the table, and the game is played with a white ball. On the right side of the table is a small groove in which the white ball is placed. Then it is struck with a cue and runs up on the board, and descending finds a place in one of the holes or goes below into one of the eight pockets. Should the white ball strike the red one, it counts double. The tally is attached to the board, and the whole affair is unique. Mr. Lafond intends placing the game on exhibition in one of the city stores shortly.
— Vancouver Daily World, 23 June 1902
I don’t know about you, but I find this explanation of the game and its rules to be inscrutable. It seems as though it is a variant of billiards, and I suspect that the ‘board’ would have dimensions near the size of a pool table (and that, presumably, one would place the board atop such a table). What the “gongs” were – they are mentioned but once – is beyond me! A check of Canadian patents did not reveal an application for a patent by Mr. Lafond for this game. I think the Daily World was right: the whole affair was unique (but not necessarily saleable)!
I’m don’t know how long Lafond remained at the Golden Gate, but by 1909 he evidently had moved to a home in a lane-way just off Westminster Avenue (later, Main Street) and had started his own pool hall (Lafond’s Pool Rooms). Perhaps he’d been unsuccessful in getting local shops to accept his new board game, and decided that having his own pool room was the only way to persuade the public of its worthiness. Or perhaps by 1909, he had come to the conclusion that his inventiveness wasn’t so remarkable, and his pool room just had the usual range of games typically found in such an establishment.
His home, interestingly, was located on an alley-way named in his honour. Elizabeth Walker, author of Street Names of Vancouver had this to say about Lafond’s self-named alley:
LAFONDS ALLEY. An unofficial name, only listed in the 1909 city directory, after Alfred Lafond, proprietor of Lafond’s Pool Rooms (909 Westminster Avenue), who lived in Lafond’s Alley, which lay between Prior Street and False Creek on the west side of the present Main Street.
— Elizabeth Walker. Street Names of Vancouver. Vancouver Historical Society, 1999, 67.
I’ve tried in vain to find a photo of Lafond’s Pool Rooms or his alley. The closest I came was the CVA image above showing the 900 block of Main (taken from the rear, apparently) after the major commercial fire that destroyed the Champion and White warehouse in 1912. It is impossible to tell from this image whether or not the properties of Lafond’s alley were damaged in this fire, but I suspect not. My best guess is that the alley-way was a bit north and west of the Champion and White locale and that it ran parallel (in east/west orientation) to what today is called Millross Road (see 1912 Goad’s Insurance Map overlay on the present-day Van Map, shown below).
The only thing that can be said for sure about Lafond’s Alley, in addition to the info offered by Walker, is that there were about four other residents in the lane (according to the 1909 directory): James Haywood (wharfinger), W. Fraser (wharfinger), Michel Carriere (Vancouver city employee), and someone designated only by his surname: Cawss (laborer).
Whether the alley properties were damaged by the 1912 fire (or perhaps redeveloped out of existence shortly afterwards) or not, it is pretty clear that neither Lafond nor his pool establishment stayed for long on Main Street. By 1910, Daily World classified ads indicate that he’d moved to Steveston. Just what took him to Steveston isn’t clear. The classified evidence is summarized below:
16 August 1910: FOR TRADE — One good-size mare, which will foal late, sired by one of the best Hackney horses in the country; for a working horse, or will take a good fresh cow. Enquire Alfred Lafond. Steveston, B.C.
29 September 1910: FOR SALE — One good second-hand pool table, one box bowling alley new.² A Lafond, Steveston.
31 March 1911: FOR SALE — Good second-hand pool table and two pair of guinea hens. Alfred Lafond, Steveston, B.C.
25 February 1911: FOR QUICK SALE — Pool table, $100. Alfred Lafond, Steveston, B.C.
By early 1911, Lafond seemed increasingly desperate to sell his pool table (could this have been the same table on which he invented his un-famous board game?). He was probably anxious to sell it because he was getting ready to pull up stakes and leave not only Steveston, but B.C.
The next time we were able to track Alfred, in 1913, he turned up in the town of St. Albert, Alberta . . . deceased. I don’t know what took Lafond to Alberta. He was in his middle 60s by the time of his move; perhaps he was unwell and had gone to stay with a family member in St. Albert (which had a significant french-speaking population).
Azilda Lafond died in Quebec in 1944.
Notes
¹There was another A. Lafond in Vancouver, much earlier, evidently (by 1888). This seems to have been an (unrelated?) person named Albert. He appears as a barber and also as a jewelery repairer in early city directories.
²I think it’s safe to say that this was not a game of Lafond’s invention. Similar ads appeared in the 1907-1920s period (mainly in American newspapers). I had no idea of the cost of the ‘one box bowling alley’ until I came across an ad (which may have been self-serving to some extent) of a used version for sale, “new $450” being offered for $75.
This is entirely speculative, but it occurred to me that the miniature bowling alley which once was in St. Philips Anglican Church in Dunbar (and, according to my source, is still present there) might have been of this “one box” variety. Does anyone have further clues on this subject? (A friend who was associated with Chalmer’s Presbyterian Church – as it then was – indicated that when doing renovations of that structure, a not dissimilar bowling feature was there. It is today long gone).
Note: A U.S. patent was sought in 1890 for a “toy bowling alley“. Might this be the one box bowling alley?
Images 2592/3 present unusual northward views of Richards Street. They show a commercial strip in the early 1930s that was ignored by many photographers.
Who do we have to thank for these atypical views? Photographer, Stuart Thomson? Well, not really. Thomson received the commission to make these images. But the commissioner was Col. John S. Tait of the Tait Pipe Co. (26th Ave. and Nanaimo Rd.), probably as record shots of the firm’s work manufacturing the telephone poles (which also served as lamp standards) along Richards St. Unfortunately, the telephone poles didn’t survive into the 21st Century (nor even into the late 20th century)!
CVA 99-2592 -Richards Street scene (showing telephone poles taken for Col. Tait). 1931. Stuart Thomson. (Notes identifying buildings were added by author).
St. Amdrew’s Presbyterian Church (shown at right foreground in Image 2592 above) was at Richards and Georgia (demolished in 1934). Dunsmuir Hotel (Richards and Dunsmuir) is extant but has been boarded up for years; I suspect its days are numbered. The Weart (aka “Standard”) Building (SW corner Richards and Hastings) is extant and remains a going concern. The tall-ish structure just this side of the Weart is the Lumberman’s Building which also still stands and is in use today (509 Richards – known in the 1930s as the North West Building). Gordon Craig Radios was at 637 Richards.
The Vancouver Bindery (650 Richards) apparently published local, small press volumes. One of the titles they published, which is still doing the rounds today, is The Mysteries of Angling Revealed (1937).
Beneath the the Vancouver Bindery sign is a horizontally-oriented sign which probably indicated the presence of an antique shop nearby. Although it isn’t designated as anything more than “Hersey, B. C.” at 660 Richards, in the 1931 directory, Robert Moen has pointed out that in later directories (e.g., 1934), the business at this address is described as an antique shop. It was owned by Bertram Hersey in 1931, evidently. But by 1934, his wife, Ethel, (who was separated or divorced from Bert by then) had taken over the business. Bert took on work as a furniture upholsterer. (Thanks, Robert, for your help with that!)
CVA 99-2593 – Richards Street scene. 1931. Stuart Thomson.
Image 2593 seems to have been taken from the east side of the 500 block of Richards. The horizontal laundry sign seems to be advertising Excelsior Laundry (556 Richards). Two businesses which are extant along the 500 block of Richards were on the block in 1931, although not visible in these photos: St. Clair Rooms (577 Richards; today, a hostel) and B.C. Stamp Ltd. (581 Richards).
CVA 778-372 – 500 Richards Street east side. 1974. Note: There is still evidence in this photo of antediluvian B.C. alcohol regulation which required separate entries for “gentlemen” and “ladies and escorts” into locales where liquor was served.
The “Marble Arch Hotel” is the once (in the 1930s) and future (it has been given its original name, again, in recent years following a renovation to make it over into an SRO) “Canada Hotel” (514 Richards). The hotel is the tallest building on the right side of Image 2593.
The “Western Trophies” building (522 Richards) – two doors south of the hotel – was in 1931 “Kingsley Rooms”, the sign for which is visible in Image 2593. The 3-storey block between the hotel and Kingsely Rooms was, according to the 1931 city directory, Love’s Furniture at street level (520 Richards) and above the shop, Shirley Rooms (520-1/2 Richards). However, Love’s Furniture, in Image 778-372 appears to have given way to expansion by the adjacent hotel; whether or not Shirley Rooms was likewise swallowed by the Marble Arch isn’t clear, but seems likely.°
PR brochure. Author’s collection.
PR brochure. Author’s collection.
In the early 1980s, when Cathedral Square was built on the NE corner of Richards at Dunsmuir, the of the two multi-storey buildings south of the Canada Hotel survived.∞
Notes
°Interestingly, perusal of later editions of the City Directory indicates that both Love & Co. and Shirley Rooms continued to exist at this location at least until 1935.
∞I learned while writing this post that Cathedral Square hides a BC Hydro substation beneath it. This was a progressive (and relatively early) development that must have inspired current planners in considering installing other downtown substations beneath Emery Barnes Park and the Lord Roberts School Annex.
“Stanley Park” ca1960s. Author’s Collection. In fact, it shows part of the garden of Queen Elizabeth Park on Little Mountain in Vancouver. QEP is a former quarry. It was named in honour of Queen Elizabeth II’s mother, aka the Queen Mother, in 1939. (A tip-off that this may be QEP was the presence of the Gunnera (the enormous leafy plant in the centre foreground). Gunerras still can be found in QEP.
I purchased the framed image above (complete with functioning thermometer!) at an antique shop when I was in Lethbridge, AB, recently.
The label of “Stanley Park” on the photo bothered me from the outset. But I bought it anyway (for $5) since Stanley Park has changed a lot over its history and I don’t pretend to be an expert on past developments in the Park.
A collector and friend, Neil Whaley, suggested that the image might be of Butchart Gardens on Vancouver Island. But upon looking at older images of Butchart, I didn’t see any water features similar to those that appear in my image.
VPL 88599. Postcard of Queen Elizabeth Park. quarry garden. n.d. George Weinhaupl.
So I focused on Queen Elizabeth Park on Little Mountain in Vancouver.
Bingo.
The undated VPL postcard shown above seems to be a pretty close match with my Lethbridge acquisition.
CVA 371-1031 – The rock crusher at Little Mountain Quarry. 1908-1910. This is an image of QE Park in its time as a quarry.
For a different angle on the park, see this ‘60s CBC Vancouver “Morning Show” documentary starting at about the 18 minutes, 50 seconds mark. Those of you who mourn the death of the Social Credit party perhaps might enjoy the interview with Vancouver Parks Board commissioner, Grace McCarthy. (Those of you who aren’t fans of McCarthy might still ‘enjoy’ listening to her already practiced political natter in response to Ross Mortimer’s questions). I found myself smiling during this documentary. There is a remarkable contrast between the slow-moving, detailed (and very well-spoken, Brit-influenced language from Mortimer; I think the last of these less-than-photogenic but well-spoken male hosts was Norm Perry, formerly of Canada AM) and today’s very fast-moving and less grammatically-conscious docs.
CVA 784-084 – Victory Square, 1986. The platform nestling amid the four tall trees was included in the Square in 1921. It was established for community singing one night each week (VDW 9 August 1921). This platform has also been used to advertise radios in the 1930s (see next photo).
From the vantage of 2018, it is all too easy to look at Victory Square and assume that one or two sentences can amply sum up the history of the place. One might say, for instance, that Victory Square was the first site of the Provincial Courthouse and that, after the ‘new’ courthouse was built on Georgia Street (between Hornby and Howe), the space became a memorial for Vancouver’s ‘boys’ who died in WWI. It has been the principal City site of Remembrance Day services since then. Those lines are an accurate but, I’ve discovered, incomplete representation of the history of the space.
CVA 99-4143 – Radio Sales Company giant radio at Victory Square 1931 Stuart Thomson.
Before the War
The first post-city-incorporation structure on the site of what today is known as Victory Square was the provincial courthouse (1890-1913). The building wasn’t loved. Indeed, it was thought by many to be an eye-sore (VDW 30 April 1918).
CVA: Duke of C and Y P21 – The first provincial Courthouse decorated for the reception of the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall and York. Sept 1901. The camera was at the northwest corner (roughly at Hastings and Hamilton).
By 1906, work had begun on the new courthouse and while the old one would continue to be used for judicial purposes until the Georgia Street site was ready for occupation (1913), debate began in earnest as to what would become of the former courthouse and the prime real estate on which it sat.
As is the case whenever valuable property is up for grabs, there were rumours swirling about. One was that T. Eaton, the eastern Canadian department store magnate, wanted to acquire the land from the province to establish a Vancouver store (VDW 10 February 1906). Another was that the Great Northern Railway had offered to purchase the land and that they had plans to build a hotel on the site that would rival the CPR’s Hotel Vancouver (VDW 4 October 1906). Whether there was any truth to either of these rumours is impossible to know.
There were plenty of proposals on what to do with the site:
Vancouver’s Art, Historical and Scientific Society, which was the ancestor of the Museum of Vancouver, made a pitch to the province that the former courthouse become a local museum (VDW 13 August 1908). The local museum instead spent its early years housed in Carnegie Library’s upper floors (Main and Hastings).
UBC (or McGill University/Vancouver, as it then was) proposed to the provincial Minister of Education that the old courthouse serve as the temporary home of the university until the province could get a start made on building the Point Grey campus. The institution was unhappily housed in the fairview huts on the property today known as Vancouver General Hospital.
One of the most popular proposals was one fronted by businessman Ed Hewitt, and architect R. Mackay Fripp. The idea hatched by Hewitt and Fripp would have involved the acquisition by the city of the courthouse property, of Central School immediately to the south of it (where VCC is today), and of the block south of Central School for the development of a civic centre; this would include city hall (5 January 1914). The civic centre shown at Illustrated Vancouver (and dated 1922) appears to be the same concept.
As part of the 1909 municipal election in Vancouver, a plebiscite question was put to residents as to whether they favoured the City acquiring the property. Although I don’t know what the specific percentages were, city residents were apparently very much in favour of the province handing over the site to the city (VDW 18 January 1909).
Royal BC Archives – Item H-02678. Premier Richard McBride with Attorney General William John Bowser, ca. 1911.
But the Conservative provincial government under Premier Richard McBride did not, evidently, feel greatly pressured by this municipal plebiscite. In 1912, Attorney General William Bowser announced that the province would sub-divide the courthouse property and sell the properties to private interests (VDW 22 June 1912). (I’ve seen estimates of the total value of the land ranging up to $1 million at this time. Doubtless, today, it would be off the charts value-wise.)
The outrage in Vancouver upon publication of this announcement was palpable. The Daily World described Bowser’s plan as being “high-handed” and a “grievous injustice to the city.”
Great War and Change of Government
Happily, McBride’s government didn’t rush to implement their announced sub-divide and sell policy.
By 1915, for the first time in print as far as I can tell, a linkage was made between the Great War and the former courthouse site (the courthouse had been demolished in October 1913):
His Honor Judge Grant . . . referred to the losses sustained by the Canadian regiments, and said he thought it would be a fitting action of the government and patriotic societies combined for the purpose of erecting a monument to those of Canada’s sons who fell in the war. His honor suggested the site of the old courthouse as a spot suitable for such a tribute to the gallantry of the heroes of the war.
— VDW 26 April 1915
In September, 1916, the Conservatives were voted out of office and the Liberals under Premier H. C. Brewster were voted in. The new government (partly due, no doubt, to the changed circumstances of the Great War) showed signs of a different attitude to the question of handing over the old courthouse property to Vancouver.
By 1917, the legislation transferring the land — by a 99-year lease — to the city was introduced in the Legislative Assembly.
In the kind of peculiar twist that sometimes happens in politics, former Attorney General William Bowser (who by this time was on the Opposition benches) proposed that the bill be amended to remove the provincial lease of the property for 99 years to the city and instead make the land grant to the city absolute!
Mr Bowser said that he had read in the press that revival meetings are now being held on the old Vancouver courthouse site, and he jocularly remarked that perhaps the revivalists were preaching against the sins of the last government.
–VDW 11 May 1917
It isn’t clear from press accounts whether the bill was amended to grant the city clear title or whether the 99-year lease arrangement was left in the legislation. But it hardly seems to matter, today. I cannot believe any provincial government would snatch the property back from the city. (And, in any case, the 99-year term passed a couple of years back with no mention by the Province of having a go at ‘our’ Square, as far as I know).¹
Getting from Square to Cenotaph
Once the debate over whether the City owned the former courthouse property was over, there was still the question of what the site would be called and what sort of memorial would be erected to honour ‘our boys’.
The name of the site was settled by Council in 1919. Initially, the park was to be called “Memorial Square”, but that was thrown out (one person described it as being lugubrious) in favour of “Victory Square”. Work went ahead (under the city’s Parks Commission²) on the Square’s garden and sidewalk features. The park itself was viewed as something separate from, although related to, the war memorial. Multiple city sub-committees were tasked with sorting out which of several proposals for a war memorial would be implemented.
The possibilities included the following ideas (these ideas were for placement in Victory Square; not all memorial proposals were to be located there; one proposal, for example, was for a memorial to be on a boulevard in the middle of Georgia street! (VDW 8 March 1922)):
City Hall with public auditorium and monument; brass memorial tablets within.
Deadman’s Island as a site for a memorial; according to critics of the scheme, a very costly option.
Building, the lower rooms to be used for rest rooms, with tablets bearing the names of those who enlisted in B. C., with names of the fallen specially marked. Upstairs to be an auditorium.
Building with a public silence room suitable for memorial services. Also a rest room for veterans and dependants decorated with memorial tablets and stained glass windows.
City Hall with public auditorium; seating 4000 to 5000 people.
Joint proposal of Charles Marega and L. Townley for a single-storey building “suggestive of a Greek temple”. This idea was proposed and modelled while the War was still being fought. The model did the rounds, including being displayed at City Hall, but nothing came of it.
Tower with bell chimes. Ground floor chapel for between 300-500 people with a good organ. On the interior walls, brass tablets bearing the rolls of honor. (A drawing of the tower appears below).
By the end of 1922, the decision was made to go with a simple cenotaph in the northeast corner of Victory Square. This would be costly enough, as it turned out (I cannot imagine the cost of the tower with chapel and chimes!). It was budgeted at $8,000, funds for which would be privately raised. The Canadian Club gave oversight to the Cenotaph project (VDW 23 January 1924).
Victory Square was opened, with its cenotaph, in 1924.
Notes
¹Perhaps I shouldn’t be so confident. This imaginary, futuristic press report (datelined May 5, 2016) appeared in the Vancouver Daily World on May 7, 1917:
“Victoria, B. C., May 5 — A large delegation from Vancouver, headed by the mayor of that city met the provincial executive today to urge that a renewal of the lease of Memorial Square be granted to the city. The lease was originally granted nearly 99 years ago, and expires in the course of a few weeks. The ground was then known as the Old Court House site, but it is not now known how it attained that name. The delegation urged that this was the only open space on Hastings street from the Post Office to the Burnaby cemetery, and that the whole intervening district was closely built up. It would be a calamity if, as had been suggested, the Soldiers’ Memorial were removed and the site sold for commercial purposes. Premier Wowsir said in fairness to the rest of the province the site ought to be sold. Its value was estimated at $25,00,000. He would, however, be willing to let Vancouver have it for $23,000,000 payable in the city’s debentures at 4 per cent. The delegation withdrew very much disappointed. Interviewed afterwards, his worship, the mayor, said that as a general election would be held in a few months and as there seemed a general disposition to return a new government in view of the fact that the present administration had been in power 32 years, he thought no further action would be taken until it was found possible to make representations to Mr. Wowsir’s successor.”
²While the Parks Commission was apparently responsible for implementation, the planning of the Square was done by the architectural firm of Sharp & Thompson (VDW 23 January 1924).
Crop of Plate 5 of Vancouver Fire Insurance Map Book. Dakin Publishing Co., San Francisco: November 1889. UBC Rare Book Room (not available online). Note: “Negro Ill Fame” near bottom left corner (enclosed by my red box) of this crop.
When I was browsing through a fascinating, very early fire insurance map book of Vancouver in UBC’s rare book room, recently, I noticed a label that took me aback: “Negro Ill Fame”. I knew what “ill fame” denoted (a ‘house of ill fame’ or prostitution). However, the location of the house struck me as peculiar.
This post is a record of what I’ve learned about the house of ill fame to date. It is not the ‘last word’ regarding the house (I hope!). This post is intended to strike up a historical conversation on the subject.
Here is what I think I know, as of now:
It was located, east/west, about halfway between Carrall and Columbia Streets and north/south about a block south of Pender, just about where Keefer would ultimately be.
It was a wooden structure, and larger than I would have expected (compare it with other ‘DWG’s (dwellings) and the Chinese laundries in the same alley).
It was near the ‘shore’ of False Creek. (The infill of the False Creek seems to have been a more gradual enterprise than I had formerly thought. Compare the shorelines in 1889, 1901 and 1912 maps).
It appears to have been accessed via an un-named alley (at least officially un-named; perhaps locals had a name for it). ‘Canton Alley’ and ‘Shanghai Alley’ were nearby. But this lane seems to have been nameless.
The block of Pender running parallel to the lane-way had a reputation for being a neighbourhood in which one could readily find a house of prostitution. These houses, however, to the best of my knowledge, were racially non-specific.
It appears to have lasted in this location just a brief time. This may have been because the area was taking on an increasingly Chinese flavour and becoming, later, a rail hub for the Great Northern Railway (GNR). It could also be that the location was found to be unsuitable for attracting the clientele the house was, presumably, targeting (black males). It could be that this segment of the population was increasingly being pulled away from this area, perhaps attracted to what would gradually become Hogan’s Alley – southeast of this location, roughly at Main and Prior.
The proportion of Blacks in B.C. in 1901 was much less than 1% (0.003%). I’m assuming that since Vancouver was the largest urban centre by that year, that the proportion was about the same for the city.¹
No photos of the house nor its neighbours seem to be avaiable in public archives.
Library and Archives Canada. Crop of Plate 11 of Goad’s Fire Insurance Map of Vancouver. 1901. Note that the area of the former house of ill fame had become even more dominated by Chinese dwellings and institutions. (e.g., there was now a Chinese Theatre in the area).
Crop of Goad’s Fire Insurance Map: July 1912. From VanMap (City of Vancouver). By 1912, the former home to the Chinese Theatre and Chinese businesses south of Pender had been taken over by railway-related buildings.
Google Aerial View showing my guess as to the location of the 1889 house of ill fame in Sun Yat Sen Gardens. Note: In 1974, there was a “Keefer Diversion”, which cut through what is now Sun Yat Sen. This traffic shortcut was found to be redundant by the 1980s and so was removed when S-Y-S Gardens was created in 1986.
Notes
¹The same source, BC Black History Awareness, shows that population demographics for blacks in BC, as a proportion of the total population, have remained substantially less than 1% throughout census-taking history in B.C. (1871-2016). Indeed, the number of blacks in B.C. only began to exceed 1,000 in 1961. (Thanks to Jenn Friesen for asking a series of questions that led me to pursue this info).
UL_1015_0057,UL_1015_0057. UBC Library Rare Books and Special Collections, Uno Langmann Collection.William A. Bauer Photo Album. Vancouver Ladies Field Hockey Team. The caption, according to UBC staff reads as follows (my speculations as to first names appear in square brackets): “Teaplov (?), [Bessie?] Lawson, [Constance] Hamersely, [Kate] Burpee, Philpot, [Jonia?] Johnson, [Maud] Bauer, [Josephine?] Boult, [Sarah?] Selwyn, [Nellie?] Lawson, Campion.” December, 1900. Photographer (presumably) is William A. Bauer.
The photo shown above is of the Vancouver Ladies Grass Hockey team as it was in December 1900. The photo is from the album of William A. Bauer, a brother of one of the players, Maud Bauer.¹ This is among the earliest photos available today in public archives of BC grass hockey teams. Jason Beck, curator of the BC Sports Hall of Fame, whom I consulted, pointed out that “organized sport of any kind in Vancouver was very limited prior to 1895.” And that was roughly confirmed in my review of news reports of Ladies’ grass hockey (later “field hockey”) matches; I wasn’t able to find accounts dating back earlier than 1897.²
Ladies’ Grass Hockey went from apparently having only three teams (representing the cities of Vancouver, New Westminster, and Victoria) in its earliest years in B.C. to having several teams by the early years of the 20th century. By 1919, for example, there were (in what we’d today call Greater Vancouver) teams representing UBC (known as the Varsity team), King Edward high school, King George high school, Britannia high school, Vancouver Normal School, North Vancouver teachers, South Vancouver teachers, as well as the cities of Vancouver and New Westminster. Not all of the teams competed against each other. (For a contemporary list of women’s field hockey clubs in the Lower Mainland, see Field Hockey BC’s site.)
Early matches (certainly the popular ones of Victoria vs. Vancouver) were played at the Brockton Point grounds in Stanley Park.
UL_1015_0018,UL_1015_0018. UBC Library Rare Books and Special Collections, Uno Langmann Collection. William A Bauer Photo Album. The City of Vancouver ladies’ grass hockey team. In action, I’m guessing, at Brockton Point in Stanley Park. ca1891-1901 (although I think it is safe to bring the earliest likely year in the range up to 1897). Photographer (presumably) is William A. Bauer.
Plainly, the uniforms of these very early teams are in stark contrast with those worn by today’s teams in B.C. and elsewhere. The equipment has likewise has changed over the decades. The wooden ball used in the early years, for example, is today made of plastic.
There was an early cup dedicated to be held by the winner of “friendly” ladies’ grass hockey matches in the early years. The Wilkerson Cup was provided by Mr. William H. Wilkerson (a Victoria watchmaker) for the winning team among (at least) three clubs: Vancouver, Victoria, and New Westminster (Vancouver Daily World, 21 October 1913).³
Item B-03501. Royal BC Archives. Victoria High School Girls’ Hockey Team, Cecilia Green in white blouse. 190-. The cup in the foreground, I’m assuming, is the Wilkerson Cup. My impression is that Victoria teams were most often victors against Lower Mainland teams. Photographer unknown.
VDW 16 Dec 1897
One feature of the early grass hockey rivalry between city teams in Vancouver and Victoria was the inclusion of a dance or “ball” to be held following the match. The home team would host their opponents.
Item B-03482. Royal BC Archives. Victoria High School girls’ grass hockey team; posed with the bus from the Hotel Vancouver during a field trip. It seems likely that the girls were in Vancouver for one of the early matches with Vancouver, to be followed by a dance at the Hotel Vancouver. ca1901. Photographer unknown.
Notes
* The “Bully Off” was the way play was started (or restarted mid-game) between opposing grass hockey teams. It was similar to the “face off” in ice hockey or the “drop ball” in soccer. It involved two players from opposing teams alternately touching their sticks on the ground and against each other’s sticks before attempting to strike the ball. The bully off, reportedly, has not been used to start field hockey games since 1981.
¹Miss Maud Bauer (of the Vancouver field hockey team) shouldn’t be confused with Mrs. Maud Bauer (who became William’s wife in 1907). To help limit the confusion (I’m assuming), Mrs. Bauer was known by her middle name (Ruby) for most of her married life.
²One of the earliest accounts I found was in the 2 April 1897 edition of the Vancouver Daily World. This very brief report is reproduced in its entirety: “With sweet success upon their brows, the Vancouver ladies’ hockey team went down to Victoria to-day to play a team of that city to-morrow, having vanquished that of New Westminster on Wednesday. The players were accompanied by a number of friends, the party comprising: Mrs. Johnson, Mrs. Burns, Misses Smith, Boultbee, Boult, Philpot, M. Philpot, Bauer, (2) Taylor, Sully, Farron, Wilson, Revely, Marstrand, Rogers, and F. Crickmay.” Although some of the same surnames appear in this list as are in the caption of the 1900 photo shown initially in this post, it was impossible for me to suss out who among these were players and who were rooters (or “friends”). And the paragraph, likewise, was unhelpful in determining the first names – and thus identities – of these very early players. The meaning of the parenthetic numeral “(2)” is – if not a typographical error – a mystery to me.
³According to another, earlier, account by the Daily Colonist, the Wilkerson Cup was for competition among more than just the two clubs. According to this source, it was played for by Victoria, Vancouver, Vancouver High School girls club, the Vancouver Normal School, and McGill-BC (an early abbreviated descriptor of what became UBC; this had been accomplished by BC legislation in 1908 but, evidently, the Colonist was living in the past in 1910!) (Daily Colonist 19 March, 1910).
CVA 99-3895 – Hotel Pennsylvania (at SE corner Carrall and Hastings) and adjacent to it, Old Country Fish & Chips at 6 East Hastings (street level in the Desrosiers block); just a few doors east on Hastings was the Only; and just about a block north of here was Oyster Bay Cafe at the SE corner of Cordova and Carrall (kitty-corner from the Boulder Hotel). At the time this photo was made, Vancouver City Hall was in the Holden Building (the 10-storey structure adjacent to the Desrosiers block), so I expect that city employees made up a large proportion of the seafood customers at these three nearby restaurants. 1931. Stuart Thomson.
Once upon a time in the City of Vancouver there were three major seafood restaurants in the vicinity of Hastings and Carrall Streets. Yes, I said three not only the Only – which was one of the three and certainly the most recent of them to close its doors. There was also Old Country Fish & Chips just a few doors west of the Only on Hastings and Oyster Bay Cafe just a block north from the other two on the SE corner of Carrall and Cordova. I’ll give less attention to the Only, as its story is pretty fully detailed elsewhere.
Oyster Bay Cafe
This was certainly the earliest of the three to be in business. It seems to have been the first restaurant in Vancouver run by George Clayton Leonard, who would become well known as the proprietor of the local coffee shop concern that would be established a few years later and be known as Leonard’s Cafe.¹ While Leonard cut his teeth at the Oyster Bay Cafe, he didn’t own it for very long. Within about 6 years, he seems to have sold the seafood restaurant. It had a string of owners over its 50+ years in business. It ultimately closed in about 1948.
CVA 447-44 – Oyster Bay Cafe Building at Carrall and Cordova Streets. ca 1947. W E Frost.
Old Country Fish & Chips
This “chippy” was located on the unit block of East Hastings at Carrall Street (6 East Hastings – where Liberty Market is located today). It was on the street level of the two-storey structure that was built by Magloire Desrosiers at about the turn of the 20th century and known since then as the Desrosiers Block.²
Old Country was an early entree into the restaurant business for another fellow whose name would become associated with the mainstream restaurant biz in Vancouver: Bert Love (Love’s Cafe and Grill). He seems to have opened the chippy with a partner (John Dobson) in 1916 at 334 Carrall, just a block from the Oyster Bay. However, within a couple years of opening, Bert shed both that early location and his partner. He moved the shop up to the Desrosiers block, where it would remain for the rest of its life. By 1922, Love had sold Old Country to J. S. Johnston, who owned it until the early 1930s. Old Country Fish & Chips closed its doors for the last time in 1933 (when it became the Rex Cafe until the early 1950s). Later, another entrepreneur would try to make a go of running a chippy at this location: The No. 1 Coney Island Seafood Restaurant (see the final photo in this post).
CVA 99-3455 – “The Original” Old Country Fish and Chips shop [6 East Hastings Street]. 1923. Stuart Thomson.
Only Fish & Oyster
The Only, of seahorse signage fame, was opened in about 1918 – although not as the Only until about 1924.³ It endured for more than 90 years, until 2009. It was owned by Nick Thados and his brother-in-law (I’m assuming) Gust Tohodar and the Thados heirs after Nick’s death. For more about the Only, see the link above and many other accounts of the shop’s story available online.
The interior of the Only (taken through front window, before the windows were boarded up, just a few weeks after this image was made). Closed. ca 2014. Author’s photo.
CVA 791-0793 – Lone Star Hotel (former the Pennsylvania; aka Woods Hotel) and the No. 1 Coney Island Seafood Restaurant (where the Old Country Fish & Chip Shop formerly was located); the Only was still operating a couple of doors up Hastings; but the Oyster Bay Cafe had, by this time, was no more. Jan 1986.
Notes
¹Leonard’s local coffee chain seemed to begin in about 1907 as the Coffee Palace and about a year later under his own name. George seems to have engaged in latter-day public relations, however – aka fibbing – when he indicated on later signage that Leonard’s Cafe had been operating since 1892!
²Desrosiers was a tinsmith and built the building initially to house his stove shop. The building has been in a very poor state for a number of years; it is encouraging to see that renovation work has begun on the block, recently.
³The shop was originally known simply under the name of Gust Tohodar. Nick Thodos and his heirs ran the Only for most of its years in business. Before the Only was at 20 East Hastings, there was another seafood shop there, briefly, known as the Vancouver Oyster Saloon. It lasted for just a year or so, starting in 1916.
Charles Abraham Schooley. n.d. First Baptist Church (Vancouver) Archives.
Charles Abraham Schooley (1850-1931) was born in Port Colborne, Ontario. He studied law for a couple of years but ultimately withdrew from that course of study due to illness. He then was one of the first men to enter into the moss trade (of all things) while in Florida for a few years. He returned to Ontario where he began working with the Hobbs Hardware Co. of London until he came to Vancouver in 1889 with his recently-wed wife, Kate Eastman Schooley (nee Samons, of Hamilton). When he got to Vancouver, he worked at first as an agent with Imperial Oil Co. and later as a wholesale produce dealer. Finally, in 1905, he became a City employee, working initially with the Treasury department and, two years later, being promoted to the post of Chief Paymaster.*
Schooley became a member of First Baptist Church shortly after establishing his residence here. He served as a Deacon and as Church Clerk for many years. In January 1925, he was made an Honorary Deacon in recognition of his many years of exemplary service.**
When the Schooleys first came to the city, they lived on Howe Street between Smithe and Nelson. By 1908, they’d moved to 2020 Beach Avenue – a home on the south side of Beach near Chilco Street. By 1911, however, the City wanted to create a string of parkland east of Stanley Park and so, as part of that plan, Schooley’s beachfront property was purchased by the City’s Land Purchasing Agent for $13,513.60.
CVA S-5-15 – English Bay [and Beach Avenue West of Chilco Street looking east]. ca1896. The Schooley residence at 2020 Beach Ave. would have been along here.
The Schooleys moved to their final residence at 2057 Pendrell Street in 1914.
Schooley’s job as City Paymaster wasn’t without drama. On September 29th, 1922 at 10.15am, Schooley and his aide, Bob Armstrong, “were slugged by three auto[mobile] bandits and relieved of a civic payroll of $75,000, while a crowd of terrified Chinese, who were standing by, scattered from a fusillade of three shots fired by the robbers.” (Vancouver Daily World, September 22, 1922). (We will leave to one side the question of whether three shots may accurately be called a fusillade.)
Neither Schooley nor Armstrong seem to have suffered serious injury. City Hall, at that time, was in the Old Market Hall. The two City employees were returning to City Hall from the bank, where they had picked up the payroll.
I originally thought that the culprits were never brought to book for this crime. However, evidence from commenter Mr. Wolfe below shows that at least one of the thieves ultimately was arrested: Ted Hollywood. Hollywood was reportedly sentenced to serve 14 years ‘hard labor’ in New Westminster’s penitentiary for the 1922 payroll theft and also for aiding in a robbery of the Capital Theatre in Vancouver in February, 1923. (May 4, 1925 – Nanaimo Daily News). For more details on Hollywood’s career of crime, please see Mr. Wolfe’s comment below.
Kate Schooley pre-deceased her husband in 1927. Schooley died in 1931 at the age of 84.
Charles and Kate Schooley seem to have been childless. I had initially wondered whether Jennie Schooley, a teacher at Strathcona School from 1928-1959, might have been their daughter, but I later learned that she was the daughter of another local Schooley: William Francis Schooley.
Notes
*These early details of Schooley’s life were found in British Columbia From Earliest Times to the Present: Biographical. Volume IV. 1914. S. J. Clarke Publishing Co., p. 819.
**Mrs. Schooley was a devout member of a different church: St. John’s Presbyterian (just a few blocks from First Baptist).
For a summer project, I’ve been systematically viewing all photos available online from the City of Vancouver Archives – starting with the earliest images and gradually working my way forward in time. (This is no small project; the total CVA images online currently number more than 124,000!)
While I was looking at some of the earliest images made in the area now known as Greater Vancouver, I noticed a pattern. Vancouver residents were often photographed in the great outdoors in mixed gender groups, often with food and drink handy (and/or showing some evidence of having imbibed something stronger than tea).
Here are a few examples.
A Pear With Your Tea?
SGN 175B – Picnic on the lawn in front of the Vancouver Waterworks Company house in Stanley Park. 1890?
According to the archive notes that accompany this image at CVA’s office (the notes aren’t online), this image was made “a few feet north of where Lord Stanley dedicated [Stanley] [P]ark in 1889….In 1937 [when the notes were written by Major Matthews, CVA’s first archivist] the locality has not changed much. The trees beyond are almost exactly the same.”
I think it’s unlikely that the spot where the image was made is today remotely similar. The building that belonged to the Vancouver Waterworks Company is no longer extant, and neither is the company. But the location of the image (probably near Prospect Point) is beside the point, really.
To me, the most striking aspects of this photo are the food and drink available and the fact that everyone in the image is wearing (to borrow my late grandmother’s phrase), their “best duds”.
There seem to be pears on the picnic blanket. I think I see a slice or two of layered cake and partly emptied jam sealers. There also appears to be a tin of something (lunch meat perhaps? tinned tongue? in my limited reading of novels from this period, that seems to have been the tinned meat of choice of the Victorians).
I’m really not qualified to speak about fashion trends. But it is interesting to note that none of the men in the image had hats, while all of the ladies were wearing hats.
My wife is convinced that the fellow near the centre back row of the group was attracted to the lady immediately to his right. I gather that she reached that conclusion because he seems to be looking in her direction. I argued (being admittedly contrarian) that he could just as likely have been looking at something outside of the frame of the exposure. Or at the young woman next to the lady in question. I don’t think I convinced my wife.
“With Her Head Tucked Underneath Her Arm”
SGN 76 – Thos. Masters, Chub. Quigley, Chas. Macaulay, Miss Drainie, Mrs. Macauley, Miss Wright, Mrs. Chas. Mowatt, Mrs. McIntosh, Miss Lou McLaren and others assembled behind fence rail. 189-?
I can’t help it. Whenever I look at this photo, I’m reminded of Anne Boleyn (one of King Henry VIII’s unfortunate, beheaded wives). All of those ladies lined up with their heads propped on the wooden fencing. . . and I find myself humming the 1960 tune by R. P. Weston and Bert Lee about the ghost of Anne walking the bloody Tower of London “With Her Head Tucked Underneath Her Arm“!
The location where this image was made isn’t clear. But if I were forced to guess, I’d say it was somewhere up Indian Arm, perhaps at or near Granite Falls, which was a popular destination for day trips from Vancouver at the time.
Of the images in this post, this one is the only one in which at least some of the subjects are identified by name.
Edward A. (“Chub”) Quigley, I’m pretty sure, was the fellow standing at the centre rear of the group. “Chub” was, according to the local biographical resource, B.C. From Earliest Times, working in Winnipeg until 1892, when he left there for Vancouver. He became a branch manager with coal dealers, McDonald Marpole. He was also a well-known amateur athlete.
Charles H. Macaulay was a real estate broker and financial advisor and was a partner in the firm Macaulay & Nicolls. In June 1898, Macaulay married Miss Ethel Jean Maclaren, a daughter of a mine owner who pioneered B.C.’s Cariboo district. I cannot say which of the gents in the photo is Charles.
“Mrs. Charles Mowatt” was, plainly, the spouse of “Mr Charles Mowatt”. But past that fact, there isn’t much I can say. Charles Mowatt was the son of Alexander Mowatt, of Mowatt Transfer Co. in Vancouver. Charles left the city at some point to move north to Hazleton where he became a rancher. Sadly, he died there in 1926 at age 53 of Tuberculosis.
Which of the ladies shown above is “Mrs. Mowatt”? No clue. I likewise came up empty with “Miss Wright” and “Mrs. McIntosh” and I concluded that identifying the un-named blokes in the image was well beyond my ability!
I was no more able to identify “Miss Lou McLaren”, unfortunately. But I’m pretty certain that I’ve tracked down her marriage record. She was apparently wed in 1919 to an accountant and lists her occupation at the time of her marriage as “Lady”.
If You’re Grumpy, Say ‘Cheese!’
LGN 686 – Picnic in clearing. 189- Norman Caple photo.
The folks who were the subjects of this photo, for all of their wackiness, don’t seem to be having much fun! There are very few of what I’d identify as truly happy faces among this lot.
They appear to be a peculiar group. Of that there is very little question. There are a couple of gents in the back row who appear to be aiming pistols at something. The fisher-woman (approximately centre) seems to be taking little joy in netting a fish of a very respectable size. And the middle-aged lady in the polka-dot top (2nd row, two from the right) looks as though she’s just swallowed something nasty!
A friend who is also a professional photographer had this to say about the Un-Happy Gang:
There are a couple of faces that are close to showing that special twinge of ‘unstabilized’. The top row, the ones with the guns and crazy chapeau selections, have clearly been testing the moonshine to see if it’s ready yet. Looks like it’s ready!
Strawberry Social
SGN 965 – Eating strawberries at a picnic in Stanley Park. 189-?
These folks seem to be enjoying themselves as they pose with ‘tea’ and strawberries. Some of the gents have chosen to go hatless. And some of the ladies (I’m speaking, in particular, to you two in the back row, near centre) ought to have done likewise!
And what would a Victorian gathering be without a guy in drag? Yes, that looks to me very much like a fellow in the long gown, two in from the left in the front row.
Cast of San Toy by the Arcadians at the Avenue Theatre (Main and Georgia). (CVA 99-5180 – Stuart Thomson photo).
The ‘Arcadians’ mentioned in the headline do not refer to a 1920s family of cooking ranges, nor to residents of a region of Greece, nor indeed to an obscure race created from the imaginations of the writers of Star Trek.¹
Our Vancouver Arcadians were an amateur operatic and dramatic society established in August 1917. They lasted just long enough to put on a single production. And a year later, the society was all but – if not officially – history.
When the society was formed, the plan was to first perform Niobe and later to perform San Toy: A Chinese Musical Comedy in Two Acts.² I assume that the play which the Arcadians had in mind for their first production was a stage version of the American silent film also called Niobe (it was released in movie theatres in 1915). Their reasoning, I’m guessing, was that the smaller cast required for Niobe would allow the Arcadians to get their collective feet wet prior to tackling the presumably greater complexity that was associated with the larger cast required for San Toy. But before long, it became clear that Niobe would not be produced by the Arcadians; the only production in the 1918 season would be San Toy.
Rehearsals for San Toy took place at the Cotillion Hall (SW corner of Davie and Granville) on Tuesdays and Fridays. After eight months of rehearsing, the musical was deemed ready for its debut on April 12, 1918. (For a plot summary of the musical, see here.)
The review in the Daily World was not glowing. (You can be sure that a production was found wanting if the most positive paragraph speaks of the scenery’s paint work!) A recurrent complaint in the review was that few of the actors were able to project their voices adequately and, of the few who could do so, most did not enunciate clearly. Pretty damning.³
As it was an amateur production, the players were not paid. Box office proceeds after expenses were to be sent to the Returned Soldiers Fund. It was initially thought (shortly after San Toy closed) that $151 would go the Fund. However, more than four months passed without any cash making its way from the bank account of the Arcadians to that of the Returned Soldiers Fund.
CVA 371-527 – J.B. Leyland. 193-. King Studio
An issue was made of this lapse in a September edition of the Daily World. James Leyland, formerly Secretary of the Arcadians (who later would become Reeve of West Vancouver) had this to say in response:
So far as I can gather, nothing has been done, though one week after the performance a general meeting was held and the balance of $151. . . was voted to the Fund. Since then there has been trouble in the company and wholesale resignations, including the musical director, stage director, secretary, and treasurer, [along] with most of those who originally joined the society. It is only fair to the public that some statement should be made, as the writer is continually being asked questions on the matter; and feeling some personal responsibility, is anxious to put matters right so far as he is personally concerned. I understand the money is still in the bank and there may be an explanation as to why it has been held in the bank so long. If so. . . I should be glad to know what it is.
— James Leyland, late Secretary.
Vancouver Daily World 9 September 1918
(Emphasis mine)
There was a press notice in mid-December 2018 that the Secretary of the Returned Soldiers Fund had received from the Arcadians $68.02 (less than half of the $151 voted to the Fund).
So what happened, exactly, to the Arcadians? What was the “trouble in the company” mentioned by Leyland?
I don’t know. I could find no further mention of the Arcadians in press accounts, after the one-liner acknowledging the payment to the Soldiers Fund. If it hadn’t been for the public fracas over the delayed payment and the letter to the editor from Leyland, we might not have any clue as to what became of the group.
All we can say for sure is that, a year after the society was established, it imploded.
Notes
¹ The Arcadians included the following personnel (these are the only members known from among the huge cast of San Toy): R. C. Reed (Stage Director), A. E. White (Musical Director), James Leyland (Secretary), Mrs. Arthur Simmons (San Toy), Mrs. Hugh Baillie (Poppy), Mrs. B. Watson Luke (Maid), Edgar S. Smith (Captain Bobbie Preston), James Leyland (Sir Bingo Preston), E. A. Sheffield (Lt. Tucker), Bruno Francis (Emperor of China), R. H. Baxter (Yen How), J. C. Wallace (Li).
²Music: Sidney Jones. Book: Edward Morton. Lyrics: Harry Greenbank and Adrian Ross (1899). Note: I’m assuming that these credits apply to the San Toy presented at the Avenue Theatre in 1918.
³A “repeat benefit performance” of San Toy was presented a week after the regular showings. This was in memory (and in support for the families of) Edgar McKie and A. N. Harrington, who were prominent members of the theatrical fraternity who had died during the weeks leading up to the regular performances. McKie was a scenic artist who was living and working in Calgary at the time of his passing. He had a hand in painting the sets for F. Stuart Whyte’s Vancouver pantomimes of Aladdin and Robinson Crusoe. McKie doesn’t seem to have been responsible for painting the scenery in San Toy. Adoniran Nehemiah Harrington was the lead stage hand at the Avenue Theatre. He died at the relatively early age of 47. The families of both men were residing in Vancouver when they died.
Chicago Tribune. 23 June 1901 p. 6. Portrait of Rev. Geo. A. Fair
John Alexander Dowie’s divine healing movement had a connection with Vancouver’s Baptists, briefly, in the person of Rev. George Armour Fair, the pastor of Jackson Avenue Baptist Church (aka “Zion Baptist”) in 1898.
George Fair was born in March, 1866 in Woodslee, Ontario to Thomas and Elizabeth Fair, who were farmers and Baptists. George seems to have left the farm by ca1890 and never looked back.
Fair married Mattie Alcinda, an American, in Yakima, WA in 1893 and together they had at least two children: Eccevenit¹ was born in 1897, during their time in Victoria, B.C. and Virginia Victoria in 1901.²
Fair did his training at Knox College and later at the English Theological Seminary.³
Jackson Avenue Baptist
The ‘East End’ mission church of First Baptist Church, Vancouver, would be known, officially, as Jackson Avenue Baptist Church. In December 1893, 31 members of First Baptist expressed interest in forming the nucleus of Jackson Avenue Church and were granted letters of dismissal from the mother church so that they could join the East End church at its inception in January 1894. The initial church building seems to have been formerly a residence located at some (now unknown) location on Jackson Ave. Within the first couple of years, however, the church outgrew their first building and it bought the former building of the Zion Presbyterian Church on the corner of Jackson Avenue and Princess Street (East Pender, today). For several years, Jackson Ave. Baptist referred to their church as Zion Baptist.
Jackson Avenue Baptist Church (aka Zion Baptist). Formerly Zion Presbyterian. On NW corner of Princess and Jackson. n.d. Courtesy: First Baptist Church (Vancouver) Archival Collection.
Sometime in 1898, Fair was called to become the pastor at Jackson/Zion. His ministry there would prove brief. By July of that same year, Fair “left the church . . . [and] with a portion of his former flock, organized a “non-denomination” group, which apparently held to a “Pentecostal” variety of doctrine.” (Richards, p.98)
In fact, the theology that Fair had adopted and led his congregation into was early Dowieism.
Dowie and Fair
John Alexander Dowie was originally a Congregational minister from Australia. By 1888, however, his theology had changed some. His religious convictions became focussed upon divine healing and he established an International Divine Healing Association in Melbourne.
Over the next couple of years, Dowie was engaged in a missionary venture up the west coast of North America, from Mexico to B.C. According to James Opp, in August 1889, Dowie reached Victoria, where he held his first Canadian divine healing mission. (Opp, p. 93)
It isn’t clear when George Fair first was exposed to Dowie’s brand of faith. We know Fair was in Washington State for some of the early 1890s (he was married there in 1893), and there is some evidence that he was in Victoria (his eldest daughter was born there) in 1897. But whether in Washington, B.C. or elsewhere, it is clear that Fair was, by 1898, well and truly ‘bitten’ by Dowieism.
By the 1890s, Dowie had taken another step away from Congregational (and Baptist) theological orthodoxy, and towards developing his own, self-serving cult. From this period, Dowie was based in the Chicago area – specifically in his own Zion City, Illinois. Zion had a “Home” (for non-medicinal healing), a “College”, a “City Bank”, and a “Zion Land and Investment Association.” (Philadelphia Inquirer, 23 Oct 1899, p.1). The name of his church had changed along with his HQ location. No longer was it called the International Divine Healing Association. It was now the Christian Catholic Church (CCC; the “Catholic” component of the name was not a favourable nod towards Roman Catholicism, which Dowie regarded as hopelessly apostate; but rather had the original meaning of “universal”). The creed of the CCC, succinctly put, was: “Obey Dr. Dowie, pay your tithes, let the doctors and all medicines alone as you would his Satanic majesty, no matter how ill you may be, and — pay your tithes.” (Philadelphia Inquirer, 23 Oct 1899, p.1).
Fair in Rebellion
By the summer of 1899, George Fair was publicly, openly critical of Dowie. His issues with Dowie were not, however, theological in nature. As late as July of that year, he’d been quoted in the press spouting Dowie’s line that medicine is sinful (and so, likewise — by extension — were pharmacists, general practitioners, and surgeons). Fair’s problem with Dowie was that he collected the wealth and the power of his religious movement exclusively unto himself.
In 1899, Fair was the “branch leader” (or the CCC minister in charge) in Philadelphia. He wrote to Dowie expressing his disappointment in Dowie’s actions and demanding that he step down from his position as General Overseer of the CCC (Philadelphia Inquirer, 23 Oct 1899, p.2). The outcome of Fair’s letter was predictable: he was fired by Dowie from his CCC post.
Dowie — in a collection of his addresses given in the latter months of 1899, and titled, provocatively, Zion’s Holy War Against the Hosts of Hell in Chicago included this thrust directed at George Fair:
The Fable of the Mice and the Buzz-Saw
Have you ever seen a great big buzz-saw at work?
Voices –– “Yes.”
Dr. Dowie –– Did you ever see it plow, like a “sharp threshing instrument having teeth” through a great big log of timber? Do you not think that Zion-at-work is something like a buzz-saw?
Voices –– “Yes.”
Dr. Dowie –– Did you ever see a lot of little mice running about a saw-bed? Did you ever see some of the mice get upon the log? Did you ever hear one of the mice whose name is Fair say “Buzz-saw, stop! If you don’t stop, I’ll bite you”? (Applause and laughter.) Don’t you think it might be bad for the mouse? Do you think the General Overseer will stop the buzz-saw?
That is all I have to say about Fair. (Laughter and applause)
Any member of the Christain Catholic Church in this building who sympathizes with George Armour Fair, stand to his or her feet. (No one arose.) Any one in this whole house, just speak out and say that you sympathize with him, and we will know just how many sympathizers he has. Any one in this house who is a member of the Christian Catholic Church, stand on your feet and say you sympathize. We would protect you whilst you spoke. We would like to see you. Is there one?
All who are absolutely ashamed of his wicked conduct, stand to their feet. (As far as could be seen, no member of the Church remained sitting.)
Have you confidence in your leader still?
Audience (unanimously) –– “Yes.”
Dr. Dowie –– All who say the opposite, say No, (No response.)
The wicked lawyers who are looking on can take note of that. (Loud applause.) All the mice who want to bite the buzz-saw take note. (Laughter.)
––J. Alexander Dowie. Zion’s Holy War Against the Hosts of Hell in Chicago, pp91-92.
Dowie After Fair
After Dowie fired Fair, Dowie and the CCC experienced a downturn. Dowie’s wife and family left him at some point. And he suffered a stroke in 1905 from which he spent time recuperating in Mexico. While he was in Mexico, Wilbur Voliva, Dowie’s right-hand man in the CCC (and a proponent of “flat earth” theory) deposed Dowie from his position in the CCC. Dowie died in 1907.
Fair After Dowie
The Fairs in 1900 were living in Chicago and he was a clergyman with First Baptist Church, Chicago Heights. In July 1901, Fair left Chicago to accept a call to minister in Sioux City, Iowa. In October 1902, he resigned from Immanuel Baptist in Sioux City.
In February 1903, Rev. George Fair returned to Vancouver where he preached at the Royal Theatre. It isn’t clear to me which congregation he was preaching for. Divine healing was not down as one of his specific topics, however!
According to 1910 U.S. census records, the Fairs were living in Seattle and George was selling real estate for a living.
1920 U.S. census records show George Fair as an inventor that year (although just what he invented, if anything, isn’t clear). They were in Detroit that year and every subsequent year, evidently, until his passing in 1951. In 1930, he seems to have returned to his initial vocation as a Baptist preacher; but by 1940 (at age 74), he was retired.
He died on 31 January 1951.
Jackson/Zion Church After Fair
Jackson Avenue Baptist/Zion Baptist, like the Strathcona neighbourhood in which it was situated, was never a wealthy church. And, by 1952, the membership had dropped significantly. So Jackson Avenue merged with a later-established east end Baptist church – East Hastings Baptist Church – to form together a new church: Ward Memorial Baptist. It continues today at 465 Kamloops Street.
Notes
¹The name they gave their first-born is, in fact, made up of two latin words (ecce venit) which translated mean “Behold, He comes”. Evidently, by the time Virginia came along, the parents had learned a thing or two about the unkindness of freighting kids with names that amount to mini-sermons!
²Some sources record the birth of a son, John Fair, also in 1901. The historical record of a son born to the Fairs is inconsistent, however.
³Thanks are due to Robert of WestEndVancouver for info regarding Fair’s postsecondary training.
CVA 1135-22 – 499 East Pender W E Graham, 1977. Here is the former Jackson Avenue Baptist Church (aka Zion), modified to become the Vancouver Chinese Public School.
Sources
Carmichael, W. M. These Sixty Years: 1887-1947: Being the Story of First Baptist Church, Vancouver, B.C. Vancouver. 1947.
Cummings, Leslie J. Our First Century: 1887-1987. Vancouver. Updated: 2002.
Opp, James. The Lord for the Body: Religion, Medicine & Protestant Faith Healing In Canada, 1880-1930. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press. 2005.
Richards, John Byron. Baptists in British Columbia: A Struggle to Maintain “Sectarianism”. M.A. Thesis. UBC. April 1964.
VPL 80449. Black Motors gas station, NE corner at Georgia & Richards Streets. Service station and parts dept components of Black Motors. Looking north. 1948 Tom Christopherson photo.
The NE corner of Georgia and Richards is currently occupied by an office block (475 W Georgia). The building itself is not remarkable. It is distinguished by a sculpture of a life-sized bull which eyes the property kitty-corner from the building (Telus Gardens).
The first occupant of the corner in the earliest years of the City was St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church. The large church building would remain on the site until 1937, when it was demolished and the congregation moved with the congregants of Wesley Methodist Church (SW corner Burrard at Georgia; also demolished) into their new, combined quarters at St. Andrew’s-Wesley United Church (SW corner, Burrard at Nelson).
It isn’t clear to me what occupied the site of the Presbyterian Church in the decade immediately following the church’s demolition. It probably served as a parking lot until the postwar years.
VPL 80441. Exterior of Black Motors Parts and Service Depts (at Georgia and Richards). 1948. Looking north (with a steeple of Holy Rosary Cathedral in background). Art Jones photo.
In 1948, the Ford automobile dealership/service station shown above was established on the corner. Black Motors had two locations about a block apart: its sales location at the corner of Dunsmuir & Homer and the site shown above at Georgia and Richards. The dealership continued to do business at Georgia and Richards until about 1952. From that year, it appears that the two sides of the automobile dealer’s business were consolidated at the Dunsmuir and Homer location.
VPL 80442. Interior of Black Motors auto dealership parts department. 1948. Art Jones photo.
Whether the Georgia and Richards property was sold or not, isn’t clear. But the business certainly changed: from car dealership to restaurant: Black’s Restaurant (note the apostrophe-s attached to the restaurant’s name).
VPL 83253a. Interior, Black’s Restaurant, 686 Richards Street, Counter. 1951 (the date was supplied by VPL, but I think it was probably ca1953; City directories continued to show Black Motors at both locations through 1952). Looking south to an auto dealership across Georgia St. Dick Phillips photo.
Whoever owned the restaurant – whether a new owner or George Black, the president of Black Motors (or a member of his family) – they seemed to have excellent advice on how to convert the dealership into a restaurant. The counter area, in particular, looks like it was a brilliant redesign of the original parts department.
VPL 83253b. Interior, Black’s Restaurant, 686 Richards Street, Dining Room. 1951 (the date was supplied by VPL, but I think it was probably ca1953; City directories continued to show Black Motors at both locations through 1952). Looking south. Dick Phillips photo. (Note: This image was photographed from the negative and was taken while the negative was lying on bubble wrap; hence, the mild distortion in the image).
Behind where the photographer was standing to take the counter photo, was a dining room in what, I’m guessing, was formerly the service department of the dealership.
Black’s Restaurant, didn’t last long. By the early 1960s, the space had become home to an auto upholstery outfit. And by the mid-’60s, the building that had housed Black Motors and Black’s Restaurant had been demolished to make way for . . . (you guessed it) . . . a parking garage!
The office building on the corner today was constructed in 1976. The Bull sculpture (Fafard), “Royal Sweet Diamond”, has been on the site from about 2000.
Royal Sweet Diamond is back! October 2018. Author’s photo.
(Fall 2018 Update: The Royal Sweet Diamond sculpture has been returned to the site! It was in absentia for awhile, but apparently not permanently.)
I purchased this postcard from a dealer, recently. It was not an expensive card, but the view of the (then-new) World Building, the long-gone water tank on the extant warehouse structure behind the World, the view along West Pender Street toward Central School, and the street scene in the foreground, all appealed to me. I didn’t even read the intriguing message on verso until much later!
I’ll transcribe the message:
Miss Francis Cox
Upper Dyke Village
Kings Co., N.S.
Do you know who this card is from? If you do write me at 1012 Eveleigh St. Vancouver B.C. This is the lattest [sic; he probably meant “tallest”, but crossed the t’s] office building in the British Empire. Height is 278 feet [The World was, briefly, the tallest in the Empire; it lost this distinction during the year as this postcard was mailed to Toronto’s Canadian Pacific Building].
Unsigned.
Once I’d read the this, I was puzzled by what it meant. Who would send such an obscure and unsigned message on a postcard clear across the country?
I took the card to a roundtable meeting of the Vancouver Postcard Club and posed my query to that body of more experienced postcard aficionados. Everyone present felt sure that this message represented a form of ‘flirtation by post’.
My research, until then, had consisted only of looking in the 1913 city directory to see who was living at the Eveleigh Street address cited in the message. The person’s name was Guy C. Anderson.
After having had the benefit of my fellow club members’ wisdom regarding the nature of the message, I headed to the public library for a root around in Ancestry’s Library Edition. I learned a number of interesting facts there:
Guy Carleton Anderson was born on July 22, 1877 in Massachusetts to James and Elizabeth Anderson. Guy’s parents were both born in Nova Scotia and it seems likely that the family returned to N.S. for visits during his growing-up years. Such visits probably explain his connection with Miss Cox.
Immigrated to Canada in 1891;
Was a ‘machinist’ (later a ‘mechanic’) by trade;
Considered himself, at different stages of his life, a Methodist and a Church of England adherent;
According to the 1891 Census (Guy was 14 (!) at the time, and living in Vancouver), that year, Guy was lodging with a young couple (both 23) by the name of Edward and Mary Lipsett (they would go on, in later years, to assemble an enviable collection of Native and Oriental artifacts; the collection later was donated to the Museum of Vancouver, and remains there), Henry Newbury (23), and several other other Andersons: Earl (50) and Lizzie (50) (who may have been Guy’s uncle and aunt; probably guardians to Guy and his siblings, also lodging with the Lipsetts: Jessie (17) and Roy (12).
In 1904, Guy married Phoebeline Keith; she had been born ca1888.
The postcard was sent by Guy to Miss Frances Cox (note: Frances was the correct spelling) in 1913, when Miss Cox would have been about 21 (she was born in 1892).
Hmmm.
The communication was probably an innocent flirtation out of which nothing came – due to distance and/or Miss Cox’s disinclination to play along.¹ But who can say, for sure.
The Andersons seem to have headed for San Francisco shortly before Canada joined WWI. There are papers indicating that Guy was registered for the American draft in WWI and WWII. They seem to have lived out their lives in San Francisco; Phoebe died there in 1960 and Guy in 1962.
Frances doesn’t turn up in the official record of Guy and Phoebe Anderson. Frances married Roy Pennington Caulkin and died in Kentville, N.S. (year unknown by me).
Here is a great question from a reader of VAIW: Why did Miss Cox (later Mrs Caulkin) keep Guy Anderson’s postcard, if he meant nothing to her?!
Note
¹There is no evidence that I could find of a familial relationship between Guy and Frances, but it’s possible that Frances was a cousin or other relation of Guy.
Crop of CVA Str P94. 509 W. Georgia (between Seymour and Richards). Wm S. Dagnell, “Old Books” Seller. ca1916. No photo attribution is given by CVA, but I suspect this may be Stuart Thomson’s work, as Dagnall’s shop was just west of Thomson’s shop at this time.
I am a sucker for antiquarian and used book stores. And so, when I stumbled upon this, to me, hitherto unknown bookshop, I naturally investigated to learn as much as I could about the seller. There wasn’t much to learn, unfortunately, as the shop was in business for only about a year during the Great War.
The proprietor was William S. Dagnall. He seems to have immigrated to Canada with his wife, Emma and their 5 kids in 1909 from the U. S. (whence Emma and all but one of their kids were born). Dagnall began his time in the city as a bricklayer (according to the 1911 census) and kept working at his trade for roughly the next 5 years.
In 1916, then in his late 50s, and perhaps musing that there had to be easier ways to earn a living than laying bricks for the rest of his days, he decided to open an “Old Books” store at 509 West Georgia (north side of the block between Richards and Seymour, more or less where Quorum Fashion Emporium is located today). As mentioned earlier, Dagnall stuck it out as a used bookseller for only about a year; by 1917, he chucked the used book business for vending cigars a couple of blocks away at the Labor Temple Cigar Store (on Dunsmuir at Homer). This alternative work occupied him for a couple of years. But by 1919, Dagnall was back doing what I can only assume was steadier and more lucrative work as a bricklayer. He spent the next twenty years (from 1920-40) earning his daily bread by working at his trade. In 1940, he appears in the city directory as secretary for the Masons, Bricklayers and Plasterers Union and by 1942 (by which time he’d have been about 84!) he is shown as “retired”. On November 5, 1945, William Dagnall died.
I can only deduce from Dagnall’s brief sojourn into used book-selling entrepreneurship that he discovered what so many others over the decades have learned (albeit, in many cases, not nearly as quickly as did Dagnall): That unless you are specially talented and have a taste for the long hours and very often little return and that (probably most of all) you find that you have a true love for the occupation and the odd personalities whom you attract as customers — that the used book-selling business is best left to personal flights of fancy!
CVA – Mil P107 – Military honour guard on Georgia Street between Seymour Street and Richards. This view looks up Georgia Street a short time after Dagnall had vacated the “Old Books” shop; it seems to have been taken over by a taxidermist (although the street numbering within this block appears to have changed). 1918-21. Stuart Thomson
NWA – IHP0215. Building Site- Vancouver BC ca1910. Photographer unknown.
I ran across this photo amid the holdings of New Westminster’s Archives when I was researching another subject. The image struck me as worthy of attention for a couple of reasons: First, it was unlike any photo I’d seen of this area in any other B.C. archive (including the City of Vancouver Archives); 2) Second, it appears to be a photo made (by an unknown amateur, I’m assuming) of a demolition site. Early demo scenes were not typically photographed. Perhaps they were considered to be like the ‘dirty laundry’ of urban life – unavoidable, but not something many would want as a photographic subject!
The fellows in the photo seem to be working at the final stages of demo: salvage. Most of the gents appear to be standing on what might be a piece of the concrete foundation of the old building. There is a horse on the left side of the image, and several men with bars for leveraging remaining materials having salvage value from the earth.
What is the location of this site? Well, we are looking (on the right side of the photo) at the back side of the Carter-Cotton building at the SE corner of Hastings and Cambie. The camera is facing the east side of the first Courthouse building and has captured a few of the buildings on the north side of Hastings. The Inns of Court, on the south side of Hastings at Hamilton, is also just poking out from behind the right corner of the courthouse.
Therefore, it seems that the lot on which the demolition is happening is on the site of the former News-Advertiser building (built ca1890; demolished ca1910) and the future site of the Edgett Block at the NE corner of Cambie at Pender (built ca1911 – present).
The News-Advertiser would move across to the west side of the courthouse (later, Victory Square) at the NW corner of Pender at Hamilton into the structure which is still there today — the former Pappas Furs building.
The business that would move into the much larger future building on the demo site would be H. A. Edgett’s grocery (on street level). By the early 1920s, however, the building would become home (briefly) to Buscombe Importing Co./Buscombe Insurance and later (by 1925) to the Daily Province newspaper. The newspaper HQ would move from there, but the structure remains. Today it houses several offices, including the Architectural Institute of B.C.
SGN 1457 – BEFORE: The News-Advertiser publishing office building at the NE corner of Cambie and Pender Street. 1900? Norman Caple, photographer.
Bu N516 – AFTER: The Edgett/Province building at Pender and Cambie Streets. 192-. Photographer unknown. Note: The archway (what I’d call the pedestrian bridge) connecting this building and the Carter-Cotton building behind it (over the lane) was not installed until 1924, according to this source.
CVA 180-5198 – Fisheries building. 191-? Home to the first Vancouver Aquarium (at Hastings Park).
You may have been under the impression (as was I) that the only location of Vancouver’s Aquarium has been where it is today: at Stanley Park. This misapprehension is abetted by the current aquarium’s lack of acknowledgement of its forbears on its website. In fact, there have been two prior locations of Vancouver aquaria: at Hastings Park and English Bay.¹
Hastings Park (1915-1930s)
The initial call for the construction of an aquarium on the exhibition grounds of Hastings Park came in 1910 from the Vancouver Exhibition Association (VEA – the early decision-making body for what would ultimately become the Pacific National Exhibition). The VEA applied to the federal Fisheries ministry for permission to establish a “fisheries building” or aquarium in Vancouver, but the feds turned them down. The reason given was the prior existence in New Westminster of a fisheries building. [Vancouver Daily World 3 April 1910].
By April 1911, however, the VEA was crowing about plans being in place and funding promised for the construction of “an aquarium worth seeing” in Vancouver:
The Vancouver Exhibition is to have an aquarium. Not a dinky little pool with some tame gold fish swimming leisurely around, but a real concrete aquarium with a glass front and all the fixings big enough to keep sharks in if necessary. . . . The new aquarium will be about 150 feet long, with a plate glass side, in order to permit the public to get a good view of the denizens of the deep [VDW 18 April 1911].
The description above would prove to be more fantasy than anything. No sharks, as far as I can tell, ever occupied the Hastings Park aquarium (although, by 1924, there was a report of a family of alligators residing within a glass enclosure adjacent to the aquarium; they were donated by a Florida-based carnival).
By 1914, promised government funding was in place to construct the $1500 aquarium at the exhibition grounds, and it seems to have been operational by 1915.
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What was the function of the Hastings aquarium? As with most exhibits at the Park, a primary function would have been to promote the product. Yes, fish and other sea critters were perceived at the time primarily as products. Conservation, research and education (a few of the prime directives of today’s Vancouver Aquarium) would have been viewed as a trifle odd by the folks running the fisheries building. In addition to product promotion, the aquarium was viewed as a means to encourage tourism to the City.
It isn’t clear to me precisely when the Hastings Park aquarium wrapped up operations, but it almost certainly had faded to black within a year or so of the start up of the new aquarium.²
Bathhouse Years (1939-55)
CVA 99-2118 – English Bay scene 3 Aug 1930 Stuart Thomson photo. Haglund’s aquarium was initially restricted to the west wing of the concrete bathhouse. Later (1941), permission was given by the Parks Board for Haglund to expand into the east wing, too. The CVA photo has been annotated by the author.
Seattle’s first aquarium manager and well-known restaurateur, Ivar Haglund, ran Vancouver’s second aquarium. The Vancouver Parks Board leased Haglund roughly half the space (the west wing) of the dis-used concrete bathhouse at English Bay (built 1909) [Vancouver Parks Board, Minutes, April 13, 1939].
By October, 1939, the new aquarium was ready to open and was dedicated by UBC President, Leonard Klinck. He “expressed the idea that this aquarium contained the nucleus of one of the most valuable educational features of the City” [VPB, Minutes, Oct 13, 1939]. In December, 1940, VPB granted Haglund permission to sponsor a series of high-grade, entertaining and educational” talks pertaining to aquarium life [VPB Minutes, Dec 13, 1940]. And in March 1941, Haglund announced that CKWX radio was starting a weekly quiz show called “Fish for the Answers”. It would be produced in cooperation between the Aquarium and the Vancouver high school science department [VPB, Minutes, March 28, 1941]. These developments are indicative that education was gradually becoming a function of Vancouver’s second aquarium.
In February, 1941, the Parks Board granted Haglund permission to expand beyond the west wing of the old bathhouse and into the east wing. The West End Community Centre had formerly been housed in the east wing [VPB, Minutes, Feb 28, 1941].
By 1944, the Parks Board had had 5 years of a Haglund-managed aquarium and were in the mood to assess the period and to begin to look to the future:
Five years have proved fairly conclusively that the present location in the old abandoned bathhouse at English Bay is not suitable for a successful operation. In the winter months, a creditable exhibition of marine life can be maintained. But in the summer, when a good patronage is available, many of the most attractive species, including octopus, sea-anemones and many types of fish are unable to live as the water is too warm and lacks the necessary salinity. It is planned to find a new location, preferably in Coal Harbour, where the water is nearly consistent as regards temperature and salt content [1944 VPB Annual Report].
By roughly the time of the second aquarium’s 10th anniversary, the Parks Board made it clear that it wasn’t interested in a longer-term commitment to the bathhouse site; the lease with Haglund would be continued on a year-to-year basis “pending construction of a new aquarium.” [VPB, Minutes, Feb 6, 1950].
In 1953, the Parks Board was quite critical of the quality of exhibits at the aquarium and, in response, Haglund requested permission to temporarily close the site until he could acquire better exhibits [VPB, Utilities CommissionMinutes, Feb 2, 1953].
Doubtless, Haglund could read the writing on the wall and, in 1955, he reported to the VPB that he’d closed the site permanently in October [VPB, Minutes, Dec 19, 1955].
VPL 40141 – (Third) Vancouver Aquarium opening (at Stanley Park). June 1956. The Province Newspaper. (Just what the mounted horse is doing in this image is unclear to me!)
Notes
¹I am indebted to Vancouver historian and collector, Neil Whaley, for opening my eyes to the existence of these other aquarium sites. His research into this subject has been invaluable in writing this post.
²For greater (national and international) context on aquaria and fish culture, see this very helpful resource by Wiliam Knight. The first Vancouver aquarium is mentioned and there is a photo included of it (from the Library and Archives Canada collections) which isn’t in this post.
CVA 180-1141 – Victor David Neon Signs parade float 25 Aug 1941.
The Vancouver firm best known for producing neon signs in the city is Neon Products. But when I was flipping through a 1948 Sun business directory yesterday, I came across another firm that was active in the city: David Neon Signs.
The proprietor of this company was Victor David. The firm seems to have had its start in the early 1930s. The firm remained in business at least until 1955 (when access to VPL’s online directory information peters out) and possibly several years later. There is some evidence that David died in 1976.
The image above makes me chuckle. It seems to represent the biblical “David and Goliath” story, but David Neon has taken substantial literary license. The eventually-to-be King David didn’t slay Goliath (who is a stand-in, here, pretty plainly, for David Neon’s principal competitor, Neon Products) with a huge sword. He used a stone in a sling.¹ And even if he’d had access to a sword as he is shown to have had on the David Neon float above, it wouldn’t seem ‘cricket’ for him to have taken aim at the pelvic region of Goliath!
Note
¹I Samuel 17:50 reads: “So David triumphed over the Philistine [Goliath] with a sling and a stone; without a sword in his hand he struck down the Philistine and killed him.” (New International Version). Emphasis mine.
Ad in Vancouver Daily World, May 18, 1910, from the Gold Teredo-Proof Pile Co, Ltd., Edward Gold, Manager at 431 Seymour St.
The beastie shown above has been known as a “teredo,” sometimes with an additional descriptor — “worm” — tacked on at the end. They aren’t worms, although they do bear a striking resemblance; they are mollusks. Technically, they are called Teredo Navalis or, more colloquially, “shipworms”.
Teredos live in and on wood. They were once ravenous for underwater wood stock in the Vancouver area, not only for wooden-bottomed ships, but also for the wooden piles that supported rail trestles and other bridges in the city that crossed relatively high-saline and temperate water.
Teredos in False Creek!
The brief article reproduced below was my first exposure to teredos and the “fearful havoc” they can wreak.
CLOSE CAMBIE STREET BRIDGE
Draw Span Pier Will be Rebuilt — Teredos Work Havoc on Piles — Draw Cants and Bridge Tenders Cannot Close It Properly — Contract let for $3500.
Cambie street bridge will be closed probably next Wednesday for a period of three weeks until much needed repairs are made to the pier which supports the draw. For some time it has been noticed that the south side of the draw span canted a little and made it difficult to close the bridge. A diver was employed to go down and examine the piles and found that the teredo worm was working fearful havoc and they would require to be renewed at once. The board of works met last night and awarded the contract to Armstrong and Morrison for $3500 and work will start as soon as they can get their material.
— Vancouver Daily World. April 24, 1909.
How do the teredos accomplish their nasty work? For a short video that demonstrates their work more effectively than I can explain it, see here. Essentially, these creatures get their nourishment from wood. They tunnel into timber, and leave in their wake calcium casings in the wood. A piece of wood that has been thoroughly consumed by teredos will be honeycombed with tunnels, rendering it of much reduced integrity. In short, after teredos have finished off a piece of wood, it is of little value or use; it will crumble away in your hands.
It is widely believed in the scientific community that teredos are not native to the Pacific coast; they are believed to have been native to Atlantic/European oceanic waters. But the question as to where the teredos originated has become academic as, due to their ship-munching ways, teredos became, effectively, a worldwide export. Well, not exactly worldwide, but they were found to be up to their wood-munching habits most places where where there was saltwater of high enough salinity (in the 5-45 parts per thousand range) and the water was relatively temperate (in the range of 1-30 degrees celsius).¹
There is evidence from early Vancouver years that teredos were busy whittling away at underwater wood along Vancouver’s coast at least at the following locations:
First CPR Wharf: The wharf was built ca1886. In ca1889, according to Arthur J. Ford, a Vancouver pioneer who, in conversation with Vancouver’s first archivist, J. S. Matthews in 1946, said: “This is a section cut from the piles of the first Canadian Pacific Railway wharf at the foot of Granville Street. It was being taken out to be replaced and I was standing nearby and asked them to cut these pieces off for me as I wanted to keep it as a curiosity. I don’t know the precise year, but I should think it would be about 1889. That would mean that the piles were in [Burrard] inlet for about three years.” The ‘section’ to which Mr Ford referred was a “small section of wood, about eight inches square, full of toredo [teredo] worm bore holes.²
At Site of Future Lion’s Gate Bridge(where the wreck of the Beaver was for several years beneath Prospect Point): Mr. W. L. Gove reported the following to Matthews in a letter dated March 27, 1950: “My recollection of “Beaver” was when the tide was low, I would climb on to the paddlewheel frame-work and onto the boiler, then search in the sand and under any small rocks for copper rivets, copper nails and some sheet copper. Then, on extreme low tides it was possible to get pieces of beams and parts of the keel with rivets or long bolts in such pieces. At that time there was no top works of the cabin left. It had been removed to make canes as curios for tourists. If the hull was taken away, whoever took it forgot to take the keel because I pulled up a piece four feet long, eight inches by eight inches. This piece was, as all other wood, below water, perforated by toredos [teredos] and that was about 1913.³
Royal Vancouver Yacht Club: This location (in Coal Harbour) was reported in 1920 to have need of replacement piles due to teredo activity.∞
Cambie (Connaught) Bridge: See article from 1909 shown above. This is evidence that teredos were active at least as far east as Cambie Bridge in that period.
Surrey and New Westminster, which were reputed to have fresh water, were apparently free from the ravages of teredos.
Teredo-Proofing?
Until c1910, the only solution to the ravaging ways of teredos was to replace teredo-tunnelled wood with virgin timber. Around 1910, however, a commercial band-wagon of sorts was started of products that claimed to “teredo-proof” wood. In other words, these companies offered a preemptive solution to the teredo problem.
Ad in Vancouver Daily World, May 18, 1910, from the Gold Teredo-Proof Pile Co, Ltd., Edward Gold, Manager at 431 Seymour St. This is the rest of the ad that appeared with the featured illustration (above) of the teredo.
One firm that advertised extensively in Vancouver was the Gold Teredo-Proof Pile Co. Products like that of Edward Gold consisted of a secret paint formulation that, when applied to the surface of wood, allegedly would be a ‘turn-off’ to teredos and they would leave the wood alone. There was another firm with a paint product about which similar claims were made: B&A Anti-Teredo Manufacturing, later called Pipers, Ltd. (after President C.T.W. Piper).
It isn’t clear to me how successful the application of these paints were in discouraging the munching habits of teredos.
Teredos in Vancouver Today?
Today, teredos aren’t believed to be as much of a threat to bridge foundations and boats because the materials composing bridges less often consist much of lumber products (more often of much less teredo-tasty concrete) and the ships that still have wooden hulls do not sail mainly in temperate, higher-saline waters (where teredos are more likely to thrive), but in more freshwater lakes and streams.
However, I’ve been in contact with a friend who is a member of the Vancouver Wooden Boat Society to ask him if he is aware of an increase in teredo activity in the Vancouver harbour. He inquired of some of the older members and reported back that teredos have’t been a big problem here; however as the water temperature creeps upward, it is becoming gradually worse.
Look out, Vancouver… the Teredos (May) Strike Back!
Notes
¹This Smithsonian Marine Station site shows these salt and water temperature tolerances measured for toredos in various locations around the world.
²J. S. Matthews, Early Vancouver, Volume 7, p. 132.
Fastening a ‘historic site’ plaque to a building doesn’t ensure that everything about the site will be preserved as it was. It is vanity to assume that we, with our contemporary sophistication, are able to still the hands of time (or developers). Historic preservation of a site requires compromise if it is going to have any utility.¹
I was reminded of this when looking at today’s Waterfront Station (yesterday’s third Vancouver CPR Station) and, especially, when viewing a number of CVA’s archived photos of the building. This post will use some of these images to highlight changes to the station over the years.
Look Up . . . Look Waaaay Up
CVA 152-1.094 – Construction progress photograph (interior, 3rd CPR station). 26 June 1914. The chandeliers suspended above the main waiting room (and hallway lights in the distance in the east wing) in the image above are no longer present in Waterfront Station; they have today been replaced in some cases with CCTV security cameras. Also, the skylights are gone.
CVA 152-1.214 – Construction progress photograph (exterior, 3rd CPR station). 28 April 1914. View of the roof and skylight zone (beneath wooden slats?) from above. This also affords a better sense of the scale of the entire building and uppermost floors with office space
Lunch Counter
CVA 70-02 – Interior, 3rd C.P.R. Station (Waterfront Station). 1973. Art Grice. The sign posted beneath the clock (‘Daylight Saving Time’) in the early 1970s suggests that it wasn’t straightforward to adjust the clock’s time setting! The photographer seems to be facing the eastern wing of the station (where the Rogue Kitchen & Wetbar is today, but another view suggests that the lunch room was actually in the west wing). There also appears to have been a small bank of pay telephones on the Cordova Street wall in the ’70s; a nearly extinct technology today!
Passenger Platforms
CVA 152-1.098 – 3rd CPR station exterior looking east roughly from where Cordova meets Howe today. The image shows rail passenger platforms on the exterior of the station situated where the 2nd CPR station had been located until 1914 (demolished that year) and where the Project 200/Granville Square platform ultimately would be built (above the platforms) in the early 1970s. It looks as though (from another photo) to get down to the platforms, passengers would exit the station at the place where today, seabus passengers leave the station to walk across the pedestrian bridge and then descended an exterior staircase. (Note: Cordova St didn’t extend westward beyond Granville at the time this image was made, and would not do so until the 1950s).
CVA 447-182 – CPR Granville Ramp. W E Frost. May 1969. By the year that this image was made, the platforms had been re-purposed as vehicular parking stalls!
Washrooms in the Station. Ah . . . Civilization
CVA 70-02 – Cropped. Interior 3rd C.P.R. Station (Waterfront Station), interior concourse 1973 Art Grice. Public Washrooms in the eastern wing! What a difference with today. Why there are no public washrooms in this principal public downtown building today is beyond my understanding.
Western Wing Stairway (and Whither Victory)?
Can P34 – Exterior 3rd C.P.R. Station and Docks, Vancouver. c1916. The entry to the west wing of the station was originally at grade with Cordova. Today, the western entryway is much higher and has necessitated (at roughly the same time as Project 200/Granville Square construction?) the building of a major interior staircase up to the western entry/exit to the station. (See 2018 photo below for a view from top of the ‘new’ staircase). The ramp was to allow vehicular traffic to connect to Pier D (which was fated to burn utterly in a fire in 1938).
View from the top of the western wing stairs, looking east within Waterfront Station. 2018. Wes Hiebert photo.
CVA 99-4224 – Exterior 3rd CPR Station (just the tip of the west wing visible) looking north up Granville at Cordova Streets. 1932. Stuart Thomson. The station was still at grade with Cordova in the 1930s. Also, note the original position of ‘Winged Victory’ sculpture (Great War, and later also WWII memorial) at the west end of the station. The memorial was moved to the east end of the station, presumably in the 1970s in conjunction with Project 200/Granville Square concrete edifice (specifically, the parking garage), which would have obscured the memorial if it had remained here. This is evident in the 1980s image shown next).
CVA 779-E04.02 – 601 West Cordova Street. Waterfront Station (formerly 3rd CPR Station). 1981. Note that Winged Victory has flown away from the east end; she’s ‘gone west’.
Smoking Room and Other Delights
CVA 152-1.217 – Main waiting room at third CPR station. c1914. To the right of the cavity through which today skytrain and seabus passengers pass, are two labelled rooms: an Info Booth and adjacent to it, a Smoking Room. What rooms were in the western wing isn’t clear, although I suspect that the Women’s Waiting Room may have been up there.
CVA 152-1.217 – Crop of the previous image. I tired cropping the image to see if I could read the sign in the western wing where I suspect the Women’s Waiting Room used to be located. No luck. But in the process, I noticed the tres cool tulip-shaped wall sconces. Those are long gone!
There’s More to the Building Than the Waiting Room!
CVA 152-1.221 – Employee locker room at 3rd CPR station. c1914. The heading of this section, notwithstanding, Waterfront Station certainly doesn’t go out of their way to make the other parts of the building accessible to the general public. The employee locker room shown in this image was probably not a public locale, either. But it is safe to assume that in whatever passes for a similar sort of room these days, these gorgeous wooden lockers are no longer present.
Did You Know?
Within Waterfront Station, in addition to the main floor (where the ‘main waiting room’/lobby is, there are four upper floors? And (presumably) at least one or two lower (basement) floors – although the latter are not even shown in the public elevators. The building is deceptively large!
CVA 152-1.224 – Office inside 3rd CPR station. c1913. Safe to say that the office furniture has been replaced on more than a couple of occasions since c1913. I was granted admission to the upper regions of Waterfront Station on only one occasion back in the late 1980s when I was looking for work in the Terminal City and had an interview (alas, unsuccessful) on an upper floor in the office of a political lobbyist who was seeking a researcher.
CVA 1477-151 – View of the interior of 3rd CPR Station near entry to ticketed passenger area. This photo shows the visit of Australian PM Stanley Bruce to the city in ca1926. Dominion Photo. The Australian prime minister is shaking hands with Vancouver’s Mayor at the time, L.D. Taylor. Bruce seems to be sporting “spats” on his shoes, unlike Taylor. Standing left of Bruce is Mrs. Bruce (wearing ladies’ spats) and Nels(son) Lougheed, a local lumberman and B.C. MLA (soon to become public works minister). Lougheed was the namesake, ultimately, for the more commonly used name for Highway 7.
CVA 780-40 – View of the Richmond Apartments (915 Robson) and the south side of the Hotel Vancouver. Looking north-ish up Hornby. Feb. 1966. (Note: The parking lot adjacent to HV is where the hotel’s parking garage is located today and where, just a few years before this photo was taken, the ‘Famous Kitchen‘ was located (along with a couple other single family dwellings).
This post offers brief glimpses into the lives of a few early tenants who lived in Richmond Apartments at the NW corner of Robson and Hornby streets.∞
The Richmond block was built in 1910 (ready for occupation in 1911), just a few years after the Manhattan Apartments was constructed (in 1908) a couple of blocks up Robson. It was designed by Vancouver and Port Townsend (WA) architect W. T. Whiteway for the owner (and eventually one of its residents), Edward Hunt; there were 25 suites of various sizes. The Richmond block was demolished shortly after the image above was taken to make way for the current occupant of the corner, the 777 Hornby building (built 1969). (I’m fond of this CVA image looking west up Robson from Hornby, with just a bit of the Richmond visible (mainly Eugene Wideman’s tailor shop at street level) as well as the former central branch of VPL under construction at the corner of Robson at Burrard; I figure the image was made c1956).
In 1911, suites were advertised for lease (unfurnished) at rates in the range of $40-50/month. Such a rate range may seem like a ‘steal’ to us today, but when held up to other comparable apartment rates in downtown Vancouver at about the same time, those at the Richmond seem to be on the high side.¹
Lucien Draize (1888-1956)
Lucien Draize was born to August Draize and Marie Lochot in France and, presumably prior to leaving the country of his birth, married a woman 10 years his senior from Dijon, Pauline Antoinette Vautret.
Shortly after the century’s turn, the Draizes came to the relatively new country of Canada (he came in 1907; she in 1919). Whether they came directly to Vancouver or came to the city after some time spent elsewhere in the province, I don’t know. We know (from their respective death certificates) that they spent all their time in Canada in B.C. They lived for a couple of their early years in Vancouver (1922-23) in Suite 18 of the Richmond Apts.
Draize was in the business of importing/exporting merchandise. His chief imports were French goods. He worked out of the Northwest Building (today known as the Lumberman’s Building) at 509 Richards Street. M. Draize’s single claim to fame, as far as I could learn, was the advertisement shown here (which appeared once, in the 9 June 1923 issue, of the Vancouver Daily World).
Lucien Draize died at the provincial mental hospital at Essondale a little over 4 months after being committed there. He was 68. Pauline died the year following.
Eldon Sidney Hilliard Winn (1879-1961)
E. S. H. Winn, as he seems to have been commonly known, was born in Coburg, Ontario to James Winn and Jane Mills. Winn travelled from Ontario to Rossland, BC in the early years of the 20th century, establishing a healthy legal practice there.
He came to Vancouver and seems to have resided in various suites, from 1920 until about 1932, at the Richmond block. I’m guessing Winn married Agnes Rowatt (b. Perth, ON in 1879) c1920 in Ontario (as there is no record of them being married in B.C.; and her death certificate indicates that she lived in B.C. for 47 years; she died in 1967).
Winn was a lawyer (in fact, a King’s Counsel) with remarkably good connections (he was a prominent B.C. Liberal). He had the good fortune to be a law partner with someone who would go on to become a B.C. chief justice, J. A. Macdonald. He was appointed by the provincial cabinet to the Board of the Workmens (today, “Workers”) Compensation Board of B.C. in 1917 and, shortly after, became the Chairman of the Board for a very handsome annual salary of $5000 (later, $6500, and later still, $7500). Only two years into Winn’s quango appointment to the WCB and he was, evidently, bored. He assumed in 1919 the chair of the Social Welfare Commission which, according to the 19 November 1919 issue of the Daily World, would involve a number of points of interest: “mothers’ pensions, maternity benefits, state health insurance, and public health nursing.” Merely the foundations of today’s publicly funded health care system!
It isn’t clear to me when Winn retired from the WCB Chair, but there are news items that still refer to him holding that position in 1929. In that year, he also became a member of a federally-appointed advisory board on the Old Age Pensions Act.
Winn was a Supreme Representative of the Knights of Pythias.
Fred James was born to Charles James and Agnes Neilson in Ontario. James headed west in c1906, when he was in his mid-30s. In 1912-13 he was living in Suite 16 of the Richmond Apts.
It isn’t clear to me when he married Florence Vithy (I could find no record of a marriage certificate for them nor a death certificate for her). The only thing I can say with any confidence about Florence is that she pre-deceased her husband.
At some point, James became an officer attached to the Canadian Pacific Steamships line. Before 1913, he was aboard the Empress of India serving as the Purser. In 1913, he made a lateral transfer to the Empress of Asia. He retired in 1944 and died at age 86.
Eugene Wideman (1880-1969)
Eugene Wideman was born in France in the Alsace-Lorraine region. He came to Vancouver in c1911. He resided in the Richmond from its first year of occupancy, 1911, until 1916. He lived in Suites 4 and 21.
He married Blanche Imogene Trenary at some point (I could not find a B.C. marriage certificate)
Widemann was a tailor. He plied his trade, initially, at 654 Granville. Later, by 1915, his shop had moved closer to his then-residence at the Richmond; it was in the same block, but across the street. By 1935, however, after Widemann had long-since moved to another residence, he went ‘home’ to the Richmond — his tailoring business was moved to a retail space in the block at 923 Robson (see the image shown above).
Widemann was predeceased by his wife by a year. He was 88 when he died.
Henri Louis Isidore Aubeneau (1876-1960)
Henri Aubeneau was born to Louis Aubenau and Hortense Quintard in Therrezi, France. He moved to North Vancouver c1910. He lived there for much of his life in Canada with his wife, Marie Moran.
In 1926-28, Aubeneau lived in Suite 4 of the Richmond block. It isn’t clear to me what took him to the Terminal City to live.
His death certificate indicates that Aubeneau was proprietor of the Capilano Suspension Bridge. My friend, Maurice Guibord, has noted, however, that while Henri and Marie bought and operated the bridge for a few years, they didn’t make many changes to it. Maurice also notes that Aubenau had been a sailor and restaurateur at different points in his life.
He was predeceased by Marie in 1953. He was 84 at his death.
William Alvin Randle (c1890-1912)
William Randle was the son of Joseph Randle, a prominent resident in Nanaimo in the early 20th century. Randle was living in 1912, according to print media, in Vancouver at the Richmond Apartments that year, rooming with his friend, George Hunter. I couldn’t find any confirmation in the 1911/12 Vancouver directories that Randle and Hunter were living at Richmond Apts. At first, I assumed this was either due to a clerical omission or because they rented their suite during the part of the year after the directory collected its information. But a more likely explanation is that William’s sister and brother-in-law, a Mr. and Mrs. Charles Coldwell, who had rented Suite 21 in 1911-12, had sublet the suite to William and George in 1912. Whatever the arrangement, it seems certain that the two men were living in Richmond Apts that year.
In early September, 1912, Randle and Hunter joined up with three other pals, George Hill, Percy Jarrod, and A. Woodworth, to do some deer hunting on Gambier Island. Their first day out, nobody got a single shot off. The next day, they decided to improve their odds and cover greater ground by splitting the five-some: Hunter, Jarrod and Woodworth took one side of the mountain; Hill and Randle, the other.
I’ll allow Nanaimo Daily News (the town from which Randle originally hailed) to recount the rest of this sad story:
Hill started a deer, and in chasing it, became separated from Randle. He lost sight of the deer and a short time after thought he saw its tawny back in the brush and fired. His shot was answered with a cry. He rushed to the place and found Randle dead, with a bullet wound in his neck.
Randle was hurrying toward his companion and was crawling under a log and lifted his head to see where Hill was when he received the fatal shot.
With difficulty, the body was carried the five miles through the woods to the beach where it was placed in [a] gasoline launch [and thence transported to the mainland].
— Nanaimo Daily News, 3 September 1912
Randle was 22.
There was no later indication that I could unearth that this shooting accident was ever found to be anything other than that; no malicious motive was behind the shooting.
Indeed, the cause of the accident seems to have been principally the folly of not wearing bright, readily identifiable gear, so there was little danger of one’s clothing being mistaken for the hide of a deer.
Notes
∞The title of this post leans heavily (with thanks) on John Aubrey’s classic biographical work, Brief Lives(late 17th century). I was reminded of this book (to which standard, this post doesn’t pretend to attain) by reflecting on a literary ‘retail past’ of this corner: it was home for many years to the chief store in the Duthie Book shop local empire.
¹A furnished suite in the Caroline Court apartment block (located — and extant — west of Burrard on Nelson), for example, was advertised in 1915 as being $30/month. And a suite in the Royal Alexandra Apts (located — and also extant, but with a name change to Strathmore Lodge — at 1086 Bute) was advertised, in 1915, at $20/month. The sizes of the suites in Caroline Court and Royal Alexandra weren’t indicated. Both were built in the same year as Richmond Apts, in 1911.
CVA – AM578 – B.C. Hilliam fonds. The Oct. 17-18, 1913 program, “The Queries”, Lonsdale Theatre, North Vancouver. Note: This is one page from the program, the entirety of which appears below.
North Vancouver: ‘1963’
North Vancouver Archives. Accession 1986-015. The Queries, 1914. B.C. Hilliam appears in front row dressed in dark “Pierrot” costume (in contrast to white Pierrot costumes worn by other Queries); I think the woman at left from BCH is Florence Hayward. Photographer unknown.
In 1913, B.C. Hilliam was working for the North Shore News and trying to launch a future career as a professional musician/composer and (ultimately) as a notable comedian. Hilliam was still a relative unknown in North Van and, arguably, a complete unknown across Burrard Inlet in the City of Vancouver.
In 1913-14, Hilliam, together with a number of other amateur actors, assembled a vaudevillian group known as The Queries. This group was from North Vancouver. In one of the earliest performances put together by the troupe – in October 1913 – a playlet was performed, written by Hilliam, entitled 1963: A Futurist Comedy with Incidental Music. 1963 was Hilliam’s first run at a similar idea which he would undertake two years later in the City of Vancouver. More on that in the next section.
1963, by Hilliam and The Queries, seems to have had three parts to it: a prologue and epilogue (both set in the ‘present day’ of 1913), and the bulk of the play, set in North Vancouver’s ‘future’: 1963. Specifically, the ‘future’ of North Vancouver’s civic politics — a very different future from the 1913 reality, in which the civic council was made up entirely of women (Aldermen Grappleshanks, Gusher, and Peanutz) and among whom was a female Mayor, one Mrs. Shingleton-Drake.
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City of Vancouver: ‘1965’
The Queries finished acting together by 1914. By the end of that year, Vancouver’s Pageant of 1914, had been successfully hosted in the City and with Vancouver’s profile had risen Hilliam’s reputation as a local composer with his tune for the City’s ‘Toast Song’, Here’s a Ho! Vancouver.
In 1915, a new vaudevillian group based in the City of Vancouver was launched: the 1915 Follies — a somewhat loose confederation of amateur actors (‘loose’, in the sense that the Follies had a pretty fluid cast, with the exception of B. C. Hilliam, whose name was synonymous with the Follies).
One of the early Follies performances, held at the Imperial Theatre in February 1915, was a play called Fifty Years Forward, or Vancouver in 1965 (which I’ll refer to simply as 1965). Although there is no extant script available for either 1963 or 1965, to the best of my knowledge, there are two press accounts of which I’m aware in the Vancouver Daily World — one on February 20th, anticipating the 1915 production (and based, I assume, on a dress rehearsal of the play attended by the reporter; and one on February 23rd, reviewing it).
Without these press accounts, it would be tempting to conclude that the main differences between 1963 and 1965 were the advance of two years in the titles, and the swapping out of North Van for the City of Van. But we would have missed out on a good deal of difference between the two productions.¹
Play vs Playlet
The most noticeable difference is that of the length of the productions. While the 1913 offering in North Van was described as a ‘playlet’ (it was but one aspect of a full evening of varied entertainment), the 1915 Follies production seems to have been devoted entirely to 1965.
Whether this is as substantive a difference as it at first seems, is open to question, however. While the entire evening in 1915 may have been described as Fifty Years Forward, a number of the components of the ‘longer’ play seem not to have been directly related to the plot of 1965. This seems to be a genre feature of vaudeville; what today might be viewed as ‘padding’ was expected as a warmer-upper of the audience of the time. Such numbers included: the singing of “The Little Kerchief” by Miss Anne Lochead,² a duet by Lochead and Edgar Meyrick of “The Keys of Heaven“, elocution by Mr. E. (Ernest) V. (Vanderpoel) Young of Chevalier’s “The [An] Old Bachelor“, Miss Florence Hayward singing a piece of Hilliam’s own composition, “The Daughters of the Empire”³, and songs by Miss Phyllis Davis (“I’m a Nurse” and “I’ll Make a Man of Everyone of You”²). There was also Spanish dancing by Miss Millicent Ward, and recitation by the entire Follies company of the nursery rhyme, “Three Blind Mice”. And all of these performances happened before1965 got underway!
Characters
In both 1913 and 1915 plays, the ‘present day’ mayor was a Mr. Hamilton. However, the 1963 ‘mayoress’ is a Mrs. Shingleton-Drake, about whom nothing is known by me, except that she presumably was not the wife of Hamilton. But in 1965, the ‘mayoress’ of the future was, indeed, Mrs. Hamilton (the wife of the 1915 mayor). Quite how they got around the 50-year aging issue for Mrs. Hamilton, I have no idea.
One of the lady alderman characters from 1913 was retained in the 1915 play: Mrs. Grappleshanks. The other two weren’t mentioned in either 1915 press report.
“Boundy”, the City Hall janitor in 1963, seems either to have been dropped from 1965, or else was not considered worthy of mention in either press report in 1915.
“Jenkins”, the stenographer in 1963, became a female character in 1965 (the character’s name is unknown by me) and was played by Phyllis Davis. She drew the only critical comment from the reviewer: “Miss Davis is there with the goods, as the mayor’s stenographer, but loses a little bit of her charm by overdoing slightly some portions of the part, as for instance, the gum chewing”. That’s her told!
Cast
Nearly the entire cast is different between the 1913 and 1915 plays. The only actor in common to the two productions is Florence Hayward. She was feted by the World in its review of the 1915 play as being the “star of the production. . . whose portrayal of the Civic Charlady in the first part of the comedy is an absolute lifelike character study, and is a scream, her every movement calling forth roars of laughter.”
From Vancouver Daily World, 10 August 1915. Henry Anstie caricature by B. C. Hilliam. (Anstie is here dressed in a white pierrot costume; it seems a bit dated for the Follies, and more apt for The Queries).
Florence Hayward was the stage name of “Madam (Florence) Norminton” (1882-1958), who was instrumental in getting Hilliam out of his newspaper day-job and into the North Vancouver theatre scene. She participated in The Queries in North Van with Hilliam and later joined him in his 1915 Follies group.
Betty Cherry (“Alderman Gusher” in 1913) was also using a stage name. Her real name was Harriett A. Parker (nee Franklin) (1887-1970).
A noteworthy member of the 1915 production was Henry Anstie, who played the ‘present’ Mayor Hamilton. Anstie was a stage name; his real surname was Chrimes and he was best known for playing comic roles well.
***
As I reflected upon these plays, it occurred to me that, although there have been female aldermen in Vancouver, we have yet to have a woman in the Mayor’s chair. In that sense, the plays were ahead of their time — and ours!
Notes
¹And this, in turn, causes me to wonder how much detail we are missing out on by not having a script of either or both 1913 and 1915 productions. If any readers are owners of these scripts or other ephemera relating to these productions, may I encourage you to donate it (or them) to a local civic archive, such as the City of Vancouver Archives?
²Lyrics and music by person(s) unknown.
³I’m not aware of an extant copy of the sheet music for this tune. That it was composed by Hilliam (lyrics by someone else, presumably?), comes from the Daily World (Feb 23, 1915, p. 8). It is possible that it was a variation on another of his compositions as a tribute (at this Follies production) to the Imperial Order of the Daughters of the Empire (I.O.D.E.), specifically the John Jellicoe chapter, to which organization all proceeds from the 1915 production were to go.
CVA: PAN N158 – View of the reclamation of False Creek Flats showing the reconstruction of Main Street at the bascule bridge. June 30, 1921. W J Moore photo. Also showing the GNR Trestle Swing Span Bridge. This was the scene of the GNR Trestle and environs about a decade after the accident related in this post. (Cropped, digitally exposure-adjusted, and annotated by MDM.) For a more detailed view, click on image.
Bridge Tenders
There were, once upon a time in early Vancouver, many bridge tenders. Who was a bridge tender? He (I’ve never heard of a female bridge tender in Greater Vancouver) was the person responsible for swinging the span on a swing span bridge or (less commonly in Vancouver), raising the draw on a draw bridge. In the first half of the 20th century, it was more typical than not for a bridge to be designed to accommodate both the traffic that crossed it (be that train, horse-and-buggy, automobile, and/or streetcar) and traffic which passed beneath it (boat craft of various sorts). In those days, bridge engineering technology had not advanced to the stage that allowed the span to be high enough that boats could proceed beneath it while not requiring its crossing traffic to wait.
This post isn’t about the lot of the bridge tender, however. Or, at least, only tangentially. It is about how the manner in which a non-fiction story is told can influence readers to think about an event. And about the people involved.
But more on that later.
The story that follows is a ‘ripping’ tale from the January 10, 1911 edition of the Vancouver Daily World and is reproduced here in its entirety.
Vancouver Daily World – January 10, 1911
(Note: Green Text inserted below is MDM’s; it is included to aid contemporary readers in understanding lingo that, presumably, was understood by typical 1911 readers.¹)
G. N. R. Engine Plunges Into False Creek
Engineer and Fireman of Freight Had Miraculous Escape from Death at Open Drawbridge
In a desperate, heroic effort to save his train this morning just as it struck the open draw on the False Creek Bridge, Great Northern Engineer Doris Baker in charge of engine No. 519 applied the air brakes and the next moment plunged with his engine to the water below and sank from sight.
The water at this point is twenty feet deep. The accident was witnessed by a crowd of people who were on their way to work. Bertram Carroll, on a Fraser avenue car [presumably the ‘car’ was a BCER car crossing on Main Street Bridge], saw the engine go over and yelled to the other passengers on board. Women in the car turned an agonizing glance at the awful sight and uttered up a fervent prayer.
As the engine struck the water with a terrific splash those who were held spellbound at the awful sight caught a last look at Engineer Baker. His jaws were set and he was seen exercising every ounce of muscle as he set the air [brakes] and tried to throw the reverse.
The accident occurred at a quarter to nine o’clock. As the ponderous freight locomotive hit the water a mountain of hot sizzling steam arose enveloping everything in sight as the water struck the fire box.
Human Chain Rescue
“My God, he’s been killed,” went up the cry from railroad men doing track duty. As the engine keeled over Fireman Frank Varrell who was on the other side of the cab leaped to the trestle in safety.
He jumped to his feet and ran to the edge of the draw where the engine had gone down. Suddenly he yelled in ecstasy “He’s alive, he’s alive. Get a rope.”
A score of men clambered to the draw. Baker was seen weakly swimming. A human ladder was formed and he was dragged to the bridge more dead than alive and then rushed to the caboose of his own train. There he was quickly undressed before the roaring fire in the stove in the caboose while oil begrimed “shacks” [slang term for occupants of the caboose] rushed to the nearest drug stores for restoratives.
“Go home,” said Baker faintly, “No, it’s just the chances we take. My back feels terribly wrenched but I’ll be all right tomorrow and I’m going to stay here.”
But a cab was called and he was sent to his home. His injuries are not as yet fully known and many believe he has been internally hurt.
Just how the accident occurred is still a disputed question. “I was on the other side of Engineer Baker,” said Fireman Varrell. “We had been working back and forth, cutting ‘in’ and ‘out’ cars and were bound for our daily run for Blaine [In other words, ‘shunting’ or ‘switching’ cars; selecting rail stock that was to go through to Blaine from that which wasn’t]. Suddenly I heard a whistle. I looked up and saw a boat coming down. I looked ahead and saw there were no flags out [which would have indicated whether the train had the right of way], and so I thought everything was all right.
“Just as the front of the engine struck the draw I felt the draw move. Then the bridge began to move. “Good God, Doris,” I said, “They’re moving the draw. Jump.” I turned a look at him “I’m going to stick and save her,” he muttered.
“Just then there was a crunch of steel, a sickening breaking of timber and I leaped. Just as I did so I was horrified to see the engine off the track, totter and apparently hesitate. Then she listed. It was all happening as fast as lightning plays. Then came a break of iron as the engine parted from the tender [the coal car which is immediately behind the locomotive; it carries the engine’s fuel], and the next second the engine, with Baker at his post, went down to the water and out of sight.
Escape Miraculous
“As I struck the bridge, I slid on the heavy bank of snow and narrowly escaped going into the water myself. A terrific gust of steam arose as the hot coals struck the water. I have never known of such a miraculous escape in my life, and too much credit cannot be given to Baker. His act in sticking by the engine and doing his best to stop the accident is the most heroic act I have ever known of. If he hadn’t put on the air the whole train would have gone into the water. He is the bravest man I know, and I have known a good many. But one thing is sure, it was all the fault of the bridge tender. He evidently didn’t see us and his whole attention was taken up by the boat that was whistling for the open draw.
The bridge was in charge of Sidney Woods, a young tender who is regarded as very careful. His version is that he had two red flags set [in other words, signalling “stop” to the train] and that the engineer and fireman may not have seen them owing to the storm. He asserts the flags will be found in the water. But this the engine crew stoutly deny.
The entire line was blocked and a wrecking crew sent for from Blaine to open up the line. A great crowd congregated and the excitement was intense as the rumor had gotten about that a whole trainload of passengers had been killed.
Contrast: the Province’s Account
The World reporter who wrote the account above seems to me to have focused on composing a good drama – and he has done a great job of that – while being less concerned with having a balanced account of events. The story seems to be tilted to favour the railwaymen and against the bridge tender.²
This becomes more apparent when the World article is contrasted with a report (excerpted below) by a reporter for the Province. While the Province, like the World, acknowledged that the cause of the accident wasn’t wholly clear, the ‘theory’ advanced in the Province seems to me far more balanced than that in the World:
The Daily Province – January 10, 1911
(An excerpt of a Province article about the same accident…)
The freight train which started south at about 8.30 o’clock . . . had been shunting on the trestle for an hour or more. Several times it came almost up to the draw span and on each occasion backed again. About [9.30, I think; the text isn’t clear] a tug was seen approaching the bridge through the haze and in answer to his whistle the [bridge] tender turned his attention to the boat, to give it passage through the draw. At the same time the train approached again but, evidently thinking it was only shunting, the man in charge of the swinging machinery of the span threw it open to allow the tug to pass. When he saw the draw moving out and the break in the tracks looming ahead, Engineer Baker jammed on his air, but, though the wheels responded, the track was too slippery to hold the heavy train of cars and they slid forward, shoving the engine over the brink and dropping it into twenty feet or more of water.
The impression created in the Province report is quite different from that in the World’s account, don’t you think?
In my judgement, this wasn’t a case of one reporter telling ‘the truth’ while another told ‘porkies’.³ The facts seem to be present in both accounts. I suspect that it was a case of the World reporter being perhaps younger, and less-experienced than was the reporter with the Province.
The World reporter directed the blame at the bridge tender by:
directly quoting Frank Varrell extensively (including his claim that the accident was “all the fault of the bridge tender”);
naming the bridge tender in his report (“The bridge was in charge of Sidney Woods, a young tender . . .”), thus, effectively, publicly shaming the tender.
Not giving the bridge tender’s perspective on the accident much ‘time’ in his report (aside from a single brief paragraph at the end of the article).
A Moment of Terror
It seems to me that the oft-cited quote attributed to an anonymous wag about the Great War — that life in the trenches was “boredom punctuated by moments of terror” — would be an apt description, also, of the occupation of bridge tender. And, although no lives were lost in this accident, such an outcome was certainly not out of the question.
I imagine the bridge tender’s heart must have stopped briefly as he saw the engine tipping over the swing span. The account of the accident presented in the World may well have added insult to injury, making the bridge tender’s nightmare that much worse.
This strikes me as an instructive case for the virtue of exercising care before we as consumers of various media reach hasty conclusions about what ‘obviously’ happened during a reported event. Furthermore, this demonstrates the danger of accepting well-told dramatic accounts of events as being ‘true’ while the more ‘boring’ report is assumed to be, somehow, less so.
Recent view of one of the last of the Swingspan Trestles in Vancouver area – New Westminster/Surrey rail crossing of the Fraser – Viewed from beneath the Pattullo and Skytrain Bridges. December 2017 (MDM photo).
Notes
¹Most of the railway lingo definitions were sourced from this useful site.
²Mention was made in subsequent World articles on the accident of a forthcoming ‘investigation’ by the G.N.R. into the affair, but I couldn’t find a report pertaining to it nor conclusions reached. There was certainly no indication that there would be an inquiry by any sort of quasi-governmental or independent body. None of the later World articles touched on the question of who (if anyone) was at fault in the accident. Instead all articles I found dealt with the mechanics of the protracted raising of the locomotive from the bottom of False Creek.
³Neither the reporter of the World article nor that of the Province piece was identified.
Commercial Hotel (Churchill Arms/Pub 340), the tiny former barber shop, and the Cambie Street arm of the Flack Block. As it appeared in early 2018. (MDM Photo, February 2018).
As I spent a recent evening paging through the various editions of Exploring Vancouver (1st ed, 1974, 2nd ed., 1978, and 3rd ed., 2012) by Harold Kalman, I noticed an entry that I must have read at some point in the past, but which I had not really paid attention to. The write-up pertained to the tiny structure which nestles between the Commercial Hotel and the Flack Block on Cambie, just north of Hastings Street.
I’ll allow Mr. Kalman to speak from his 1st and 2nd eds. He is writing about the Commercial Hotel and only incidentally about the un-named little building² adjacent to it (neither made an appearance in his 3rd ed., for some reason):
This ruggedly textured brick and stone building was long known as the Commercial Hotel¹; the name used to appear on a pointed gable at the top. Ponderous ground-floor arches are now mostly concealed by the new front. The tiny barber shop next door, probably the smallest building in the city, has occupied the gap between the two large structures ever since the beginning of the century. (Exploring Vancouver, 2nd Ed. (1978), UBC Press, p, 36. Emphasis mine.)
A Brief History of Occupants
According to Kalman’s 1st and 2nd eds., the Commercial Hotel was erected in 1896 and was designed by an unknown architect. However, the Biographical History of Architects in Canada identifies the architect as being the same person who designed the Flack Block (which was built later, in 1899), William Blackmore.³
The first mention of the Commercial Hotel in Vancouver directories seems to have been in 1898. Over the years, the street numbering systems along this stretch would vary and different numbers would be assigned to the hotel and to the small structure between it and the Flack Block. In 1898, the Commercial was 338 Cambie. There is no evidence of any building adjacent to it on the south side at this time: neither the tiny building nor the Flack Block. As is shown in the photo below (which is roughly dated by CVA staff as being ca1895), aside from the Commercial, the only other structure on the Cambie/Hastings corner is the first YMCA (located roughly where the Ormidale Block would be built not too many years later, and remains today).
CVA Str P67 – [View of the corner of Hastings Street at Cambie Street] Bailey Bros. ca1895. (Note the ‘pointed gable’ on the Commercial Hotel, as mentioned by Kalman).
By the time the photo below was taken sometime in the first decade of the 1900s, however, the Flack Block was standing on the corner and so was the tiny building between Commercial and Flack. And, as M. Guibord points out in his comment below, there appear to be three barbering poles out front.
CVA M-3-27.5 – [Flack Block, northeast corner of Hastings and Cambie] 190-?
There is a difference in how the wee building appeared at this early photographed date and how it appears now. If you refer to the first image in this post, you will note that a curved gable feature is evident atop the wee shop. This wasn’t present in the 190- image, nor indeed, in any of the other photos shown below. (There is a photo taken in the 1980s or ’90s that seems to show it for the first time, however). To look at that feature today, you’d swear it was original to the shop, as it is covered with moss and seems to have generally aged far more than its actual, perhaps, 35 years. Just what function the upper storey performed isn’t clear to me. But I suspect that it was built with the intention of creating a bit of storage space.
In the 1910 directory, there is mention made of Morris Levine, who apparently was the first barber to occupy the little building. In the 1930s and ’40s, the shop was identified anonymously as the “Commercial Barber Shop”. No proprietor was mentioned in the directories that I viewed over these years. And by the ’50s, it was known as the Lux Barber Shop.
CVA Bo P365.5 – [Officers of the Chilean training ship “Presidente Pinto” at cenotaph wreath ceremony] 1952 Charles Wishart. Note the signage for the Lux Barber Shop is just visible behind the heads of the Chilean officers.
By the 1970s (probably starting in the 1960s), the “Rose Bros.” had taken over the tenancy of the barber shop. The Rose Bros. appear to have been, probably, father, Samuel (1881-1973) and son, Joseph (1913-1978) — both of whom were born in P.E.I.
Gated and locked former entry to the ‘smallest building in Vancouver’. MDM Photo, February 2018.
It isn’t clear to me whether there were other barbering tenants of the small shop after the Roses died.
The building patently is unused today for much of anything except possibly storage. The entry is thoroughly gated and locked to prevent anyone from thinking it might be a suitable place to bed down.
It is even less clear why the little structure was created in the first place. Was there a deliberate decision to allow this space to stand as a “buffer” between the hotel and Flack? Why? If not a deliberate act, was it accidental? Did an early civic surveyor neglect to measure the lots twice (or thrice) and so got either the Commercial or the Flack lots a little smaller than they ought to have been?
We can only speculate. Whatever the actual reason, it seems to have been lost in the mists of time.
Notes
¹I’m guessing that the space within the structure is perhaps 100-200 s.f.
²In the 1970s, the Commercial Hotel was renamed the El Cid Hotel and at some later time, it became known as the Churchill Arms/Pub 340. It remains so, today.
³Oddly, the Biographical History identifies the source of this information as being Kalman’s 2nd ed., and claims that the Commercial was built in 1895.
UL_1449_0103. “Harry [Henry Babington] Cambie and Ruby Springer Walking Together”. UBC Library Rare Books and Special Collections, Uno Langmann Collection. [Springer] Family Photo Album, ca1900-1910. Photographer unknown.
The image shown above is a fine example of what seem to me to be the quite ‘modern’ images that comprise the Springer family album that is part of UBC’s Uno Langmann Collection. The photograph above, which probably was taken at Harrison Lake, shows one of the Springer sisters (almost certainly) and, less certainly to me, Henry (Harry) Babington Cambie – Henry John Cambie’s son (HJC is the namesake for one of the major streets and a bridge crossing False Creek in Vancouver) – walking along the waterfront with their backs to the camera. In these early years of photography, it was pretty uncommon for camera operators (either amateurs or pros) to make images of people that were anything other than ‘face on’ and posed. This portrait has neither of those qualities.¹
The Springer brood consisted of three boys and three girls. The children of Benjamin Springer (1841-1898) and Fannie Nias (1854-1874) seem to have arrived roughly every two or three years beginning with Mabel, the eldest, and followed by Eva, Frank, Hugh, Ruby and, lastly, Robert.
Given the number of photographs in which Ruby Springer is identified in this album, it seemed to me possible that a suitor of Ruby’s may have been the principal photographer of family/friends in this album.² The only suitor of Ruby’s of whom I’m aware was the man who ultimately married her — William Alfred Bauer; he wedded Ruby Maud Eliza Springer in December 1907.
My theory that W. A. Bauer was the main photographer of the Springer album fell apart, however, upon discovering that there was another album in the Uno Langmann Collection attributed to Bauer. The photographs in Bauer’s album seem to me to be very different from those in the Springer album. Bauer seems to favour landscape shots, versus the people-dominated images of the Springer album. And Bauer also seemed to bring a greater technical expertise to his shots than could be said of the sometimes blurry and often under- or over-exposed shots taken by the mystery shooter of the Springer images. The images that made it into Bauer’s album were pretty consistently sharp and appropriately exposed. Composition-wise, however, Bauer’s shooting couldn’t hold a candle to the images made by the Springer shooter!
Having rejected Bauer as the primary shooter of the Springer album, I turned to the possibility that Ruby had taken the shots herself (Note: Upon marrying Bauer, she seemed to revert to one of her middle name as her ‘first’ name: Maud. To prevent confusion, however, I will continue to refer to her in this post as Ruby). We have access to Ruby’s shooting style, thanks to the presence in the Langmann Collection of an album attributed to her. A browse through Ruby’s photos in this album, however, reflect such a different style as to make it very unlikely that she was the shooter of the photos in the Springer album. Ruby Springer Bauer tended to shoot wide landscapes with teeny-tiny people in the middle distance or background of the shot, as opposed to the emphasis in nearly every image in the Springer album on people as the main subject.
UL_1449_0089. “Man and woman with a baby.” UBC Rare Books and Special Collections, Uno Langmann Collection. [Springer] Family Photo Album. ca1900-1910. Photographer unknown. Note: This image seems to me to be more typical of a shot made in the 1950s or ’60s than one made in the early years of the 20th century. The dominance in the shot of the baby and the proud parents is remarkable, in my opinion.
The reasoning of the previous paragraphs has led me to the not-very-remarkable conclusion that the Springer album shooter was one of the Springer siblings. Perhaps a little more remarkable, however, is my personal belief that the photographer was one of the two sisters: either Mabel or Eva (rejecting Ruby from contention, as we’ve done, above). The predominance of women and children in the Springer shots is one of the features that leads me to this conclusion. But the other feature is the very relaxed nature of the subjects of the photos; they seem (women and men alike) to truly ‘let their hair down’ in these Edwardian photos in a way that seems improbable to me had the photographer been male (as was the norm at the time).
A good example of the remarkably relaxed subjects is the photo below of a woman (Ruby Springer?) with her back — not to mention her backside — facing the camera whilst adjusting the sail on a boat!
UL_1449_0110. Man and woman adjusting sail. UBC Rare Books and Special Collections, Uno Langmann Collection. [Springer] Family Photo Album. ca1900-1910. Photographer unknown.
Notes
¹Whether it is “Harry Cambie,” as identified by UBC as the male subject of the first photo, seems to me to be open to question given that the gent walking along the waterfront seems to have darker hair colour than other images of “Harry Cambie” identified by an album owner with black grease pencil. See, for example, this image from the Springer album.
²Not all of the images in the album are family/friends shots. Toward the back of the album, the ‘feel’ of the images changes quite abruptly, apparently in time and also with a change in the principal camera operator. There are at least three images of groups trudging through and camping in the Chilkoot Pass that were made by Eric A. Hegg, a pro photographer associated primarily with images of the Gold Rush. A long-format postcard of a BC Electric Observation Car taken by local pro, Harry E. Bullen, is also included in the album. Other professional images near the back of the album include one made by the Gidley Studio of Duncan, BC and a couple made by J. A. Brock (a Vancouver professional photographer from 1886-1890s). For more information on these (and virtually all other) major early photographers in B.C. and environs, please see David Mattison’s fine photographic directory for BC, Yukon, and Alaska, Camera Workers: 1858-1950.
CVA 371-865 – Exterior of The Rustic Dining Rooms and Lodging House at 318 Cordova Street, ca 1901. Note: There is a ‘reassuring’ note on the window that they have “white cooks only” (presumably; the Asians, blacks and others of colour in the city at that time can’t have found this to be overly comforting!).
This image caught my attention when I was browsing through CVA’s photos recently. The Rustic was located at 318 Cordova St., just a couple of doors west of the extant Arlington Hotel (at the corner where Cordova meets Cambie), today an SRO, I’m assuming.
The Rustic seems from the exterior view to be pretty rustic. I couldn’t imagine what it must look like inside! But, to my surprise, a little more research gave me a pretty good idea of what it must have looked like just a couple of years earlier. I wasn’t expecting to see an interior photo, as it was uncommon for ‘flashlight’ images to be made this early, but there it was: the Rustic’s predecessor at this location, the Poodle Dog Hotel!
Hot P5 – Interior of Poodle Dog Hotel bar on Cordova between Cambie and Abbott Streets, ca1898. Note: I brightened this exposure digitally a bit, so that we could better see the interior details.
The name of this drinking establishment wasn’t by any means unique. There were other Poodle Dog dining rooms and bars in the B.C. at this time. I found evidence of a Poodle Dog in Nanaimo, for example, and a dining room of long-standing in Victoria. The Victoria restaurant specialized in French cuisine and was owned and operated by a Monsieur Louis Marbeouf.
But the Poodle Dog Hotel on Vancouver’s Cordova Street was decidedly not a French restaurant. Indeed, the image above shows only a bar room. But it was a bar with interesting details. According to a note in CVA’s collection:
The unique Poodle Dog Hotel bar was made of almost every kind of bark, cedar bark, vine, maple twigs, moss and fungus, etc., was built by George Cary for Bert Burton….The owner’s name was spelt out in big letters of maple branch twigs along the front…. [It] was illuminated with coal gas.
Perhaps your eyes are younger than mine and you are able to see Burton’s name spelled out with maple twigs on the front of the bar; but neither my eyes nor my imagination is up to the task, I’m afraid! Some of the detail that I can make out, however, are small pieces of indigenous leather work (in foreground) and (in background) the head of a big horn sheep.
If there are other details that you notice, please comment below.
I was recently struck (again) by what excellent images these two are of 1930s Vancouver. How exemplary of how I often have thought of the ’30s in this city, and how great an exposure in nearly every respect, technically, as well. This was W. E. Frost at his best!
So I decided that I would take the unusual step for VAIW and re-post this two years after it was originally posted. I hope you appreciate and enjoy these Frost photos as much as I do!
CVA 447-285 – Canadian Pacific Railway tracks and Carrall Street. ca 1930 W. E. Frost photo.
CVA GF N3 – C.P.R. right of way between Cordova and Carrall Streets] 1935. No photo credit attributed by CVA. (VAIW Note: This image is so similar to the photo above – in composition, exposure and sharpness – that I’d speculate that it’s also a W.E. Frost photo.)
These two images of the CPR right of way in Vancouver’s downtown east side have features in common. Both photos were made in the midst of the Great Depression, all of the people in the photo are men, all wearing dark suits. (I get the sense from these images of both an economic and an emotional depression). I’d speculate that the photos were made by the same photographer.
But there are differences in these photos: they were made from locations about 1.5 blocks and – more importantly, about five years – apart.
In the first photo, the photographer seems to have stood near the intersection of Carrall and East Hastings and faced north. I reached this conclusion because Lind’s Cafe (330 Carrall, a couple of lots north of the corner of Hastings at Carrall) is to the right in foreground and the Gordon & Belyea building (101 Powell, near the northeast corner of Powell and Columbia) is to the right in background.
Goad’s Fire Insurance Map, 1912 superimposed over City of Vancouver’s VanMap. Showing the CPR right of way slicing through blocks of downtown east side.
Both of the photos were taken in a northeasterly direction, but the second one was taken about 1.5 blocks northeast of the first one – from a spot near East Cordova St, between Carrall and Columbia Streets. The Gordon & Belyea building is in the background of this image, too, just visible behind another building near the right frame.
There are rail tracks visible in the first image, but not in the second. Indeed, in the first image, there is even a sign nagging pedestrians “not to walk and trespass on the railway”. (Notwithstanding the caution, a couple of gents are walking along and across the tracks). There isn’t a similar warning visible in the second image; nor are there level crossing signs in the lower one. But, then, neither are there tracks visible in the second image.
The reason there is no track in the second photo is that it was made later (ca1935) than the first one (ca1930); the CPR removed some of the track from the right of way once the Dunsmuir Tunnel was installed in 1932.
Trains henceforth travelling from the main line to English Bay entered the tunnel at a portal drilled in the bluff below Hastings near Thurlow. The track then looped around and travelled directly east along Dunsmuir, veered southeast under the Beatty Street Drill Hall and emerged onto the False Creek flats. For forty years the tracks connected with the railway’s marshalling yards and Roundhouse. (Vancouver The Way it Was. Michael Kluckner, 87).
Part of the Dunsmuir Tunnel was repurposed in 1983 as a component of the Skytrain system. The photo below has not yet been fully catalogued by CVA, but it appears to me to be a scene of the Dunsmuir Tunnel, ca 1983, as it was being modified for the Expo Line of Skytrain; the photo would have been taken somewhere between Waterfront station and Stadium/Chinatown station.
CVA 800-2575 – [Description in Progress] n.d. Alan J. Ingram photo. (VAIW Notes: The image appears to me to be the old Dunsmuir Tunnel being repurposed for Skytrain’s Expo Line downtown, ca1983. I have digitally modified the photo to improve the exposure.)
I recently picked up this recording** made by Social Credit, Vancouver Centre MLAs, Herb Capozzi (1925-2011) and Evan Wolfe (1922-2009) as part of their joint campaign¹ for the 1969 General Election. The recording was cleverly called The Record of [fill-in-the-blank]. The candidates were introduced on each side, in turn, by self-described phone-in host, Jim McDonald.² I’m assuming that Wolfe and Capozzi were the only two Social Credit candidates to produce such an album. I so assume because theirs is the only one I’ve encountered.
When I listened to each side of the record, I was under the impression that Wolfe was the incumbent and Capozzi was a new candidate in this election. The reason I so concluded was that, while Wolfe mentioned his experience on legislative committees (e.g., the Public Accounts Committee), Capozzi’s background was cast solely in terms of his non-parliamentary “business management” experience (e.g, as General Manager of the BC Lions, the first person in that position to bring a Grey Cup “home” to B.C.).
In fact, both men were successful candidates in Vancouver Centre in the previous general election (1966) and in 1969!
These Social Credit gents made some pretty predictable remarks: Wolfe, for instance, warned electors of the dangers that would come from “operating under the heavy hand of state socialism” in the event the Socreds were unsuccessful in forming another government; Capozzi, similarly, commented that, when it came to welfare policy, he favoured “self-help” rather than continuing to support families who had been receiving payments “generation after generation”. (One wonders just how long Capozzi believed that the welfare system had been in place!)
But there was also at least one surprise in The Record. Capozzi advocated that street parking be removed from all major downtown streets. This seems to me the sort of error that a rookie candidate would make³ — thus reinforcing my (mistaken) assumption that Capozzi hadn’t yet served in the provincial legislature.
Note
*K-Tel records are a Canadian phenomenon of the 1970s. In case you weren’t alive (or were not living in Canada) at that time, here is a page where you can get a taste of K-Tel ads. Go to the 16 minute, 55 seconds point to see the ad for Emotions. And if your blood sugar levels haven’t gone through the roof after that, then Let’s Disco! (immediately after Emotions!) (Note: The scenes in this ad look as though they were shot in Vancouver at English Bay and Stanley Park.)
**This recording is now in the care and custody of the Royal BC Museum.
¹At the time, dual-member electoral districts were common in B.C. With such a system, the two candidates who won the greatest number of votes were elected. This typically meant that whichever party was favoured in a riding won double the seats that would have been the case in a single-member riding. This worked to Social Credit’s advantage in the late 1950s and 1960s. But the tide would turn in favour of the New Democrats in this riding beginning in the next General Election (1972) and would continue to favour the NDP through the 1986 election. Redistribution would result, in 1991, in the disappearance of Vancouver Centre and at the same time, in the practice of dual-member constituencies.
²As of 1970, McDonald hosted a 2-hour show, weekday mornings on CKVN, called “Open Mind with Jim McDonald.” What exactly he was doing prior to 1969 isn’t clear to me.
Grace (left) & Claire (right) Corbould, New Westminster. ca 1905 (?) Note: Grace’s portrait was made by New West Japanese photographer, Paul L. Okamura, Each portrait is identified with handwritten notes – Grace’s apparently by herself on the face of the card; Claire’s on verso.
I recently came across the cabinet card of Grace Milwood Corbould (1886-1969) at Vancouver’s History Store. A week later, upon returning to the shop, I found the smaller card of her elder sister, (Marion) Claire Corbould (1884-1966).¹
These girls were two daughters of legendary New Westminster figure Gordon Edward Corbould (1847-1926) and his wife, Arabella Almond Down (ca1853-94), whom Gordon married in 1877. Sadly, Arabella died in 1894 at the relatively young age of 41. GEC married widow Charlotte M. E. Wright in 1901.
The G. E. Corboulds were a large family: Gordon Bruce, Lillie May (who predeceased her father in 1922)², Nella Alma, Grace Milwood, Marion Claire, Monica Vera, and Charles Edward B. The girls outnumbered the guys in the brood by a ratio of about 2:1. All the kids were by GEC’s first wife, Arabella.
A quick bio of Dad Corbould (GEC) seems in order. He was born in Ontario and first practiced law there in 1872. He was admitted to the B.C. bar in 1882. Two years later, he entered into partnership with Angus John McColl, who later was made chief justice of B.C. One-time B.C. Premier, Sir Richard McBride, served his articles with GEC. Plainly, Gordon Edward had a talent for making connections. In addition to that (or because of it, more likely), he went on to have a political career at the federal level, successfully contesting a New Westminster by-election in 1890; he was returned to the House of Commons in the 1891 general election, and remained a Conservative MP until 1896.
Record ID 18282 – New Westminster Archives. Children of G.E.and Arabella Corbould. [ca. 1895]. S J Thompson, photographer. Shown from left to right are: Lillie May, Alma (standing), Vera, Claire. Bernie (Charles Edward B., I presume) is shown sitting on stool, Gordie B., Grace, with “Mickie” the dog in her lap.
Grace M. Corbould married a gent with the improbable name of Vyvyan (sometimes spelled Vivian) Chard Brimacombe (1881-1949) in 1907. (I’m assuming that the cabinet card of Grace was made prior to that, since she signed it with her maiden name). VCB was a banker and was the manager of a branch of the Bank of Montreal upon his retirement. He served in the Canadian Expeditionary Force during the Great War and, when he was demobilized in 1919, had the rank of Lieutenant. The Brimacombes had three boys: Robert Douglas, Edward Chard Corbould, and Rafe Sherme.
CVA Sp P12 – Old Time Cricketers gathered at Brockton Point, Vancouver, B.C. during Vancouver’s Golden Jubilee Cricket Week July 4-9 1938 Stuart Thomson photo. V. C. Brimacombe is on far right.
Claire marrried Frederic (later, he changed the spelling to the more conventional “Frederick”) William Anderson (1883-1955) in New Westminster in 1910. Anderson was a civil engineer. Like his brother-in-law, Vyvyan (and most other young men), he served in the Great War. What remains unclear to me is when exactly he was demobilized. According to his wartime personnel records, it was in 1918. But it seems also that he was elected to the provincial legislature for the riding of Kamloops during the 1916 general election.² Whatever the explanation for this apparent discrepancy [see Ken’s comment below], he was re-elected in 1920 and continued as a Liberal MLA (and as Government Whip) until 1924. After his political career was over, he took on federal government employment for the Harbour Commission, serving as Resident Engineer in ca1927-30 on a North Vancouver “subway” project which resulted in the Pacific Great Eastern railway line (now the CNR) being submerged beneath the traffic of Lonsdale and St. George’s avenues. Where exactly the Andersons went after leaving North Vancouver in the early 1930s isn’t clear to me, but there are a couple of clues that they settled in the Ladner district (Frederick died in Boundary Bay in 1955; Claire died in Ladner a decade later).
While in North Vancouver, the Andersons lived in what appear to have been pretty tony digs: 1617 Grand Boulevard (what today still looks very nice – the Gill Residence). They had two kids: a girl, Frances Marion, and a boy, William Patrick.
Conclusion
I’d hoped in this post to be able to find enough information to give a more complete treatment of the lives of Grace and Claire Corbould. One of the chronic frustrations associated with writing this blog is the woefully scant number of women whose lives have been fully explored. The fact remains that if you were a Canadian woman born in the 19th or early-to-mid 20th centuries, and didn’t have a remarkable parentage and/or do pretty remarkable deeds (one exception which comes to mind is E. Pauline Johnson), there isn’t much of a publicly-available historical record remaining for researchers to explore and share.
This proved to be true of Grace and Claire. Although the women in the Corbould clan patently outnumbered the men, the guys in the family got what ‘press’ was available. We are left with little more than the gazes from the photographs of these sisters with their remarkably voluminous Corbouldian hair.
Notes
¹The portrait of Grace looks to be untouched and is in pristine condition. It has Paul L. Okamura’s signature mark beneath it. I suspect that Claire’s portrait was likewise made by Okamura, but I think the card has been cropped with scissors for some reason, either by Claire or the receiver of the card. As a result, the signature mark is lost. If you are interested in seeing other photos by Okamura, see here. If you are interested in learning more about Okamura’s story, see here for a very good article written by Jim Wolf for British Columbia History.
²Lillie May, like Grace and Claire, made a good marriage. She was wed to a man named E. O. S. Scholefield, the second B.C. provincial archivist. He predeceased Lillie May in 1919. There is an interesting little connection between the Scholefields and the Andersons, however. While an MLA, F. W. Anderson had a copper beech tree planted adjacent to the provincial library on the grounds of the legislature in memory of Scholefield and also ensured that EOSS’s widow received a provincial government pension. See this article by Terry Eastwood for B. C. Studies, p. 60.
³Anderson’s Great War records are available online here. 1916 B.C. General Election results are here at p. 366.
Terminal & (1500) Main THEN: CVA 1184-1734 – Al Deeming Union Oil dealer service station, ca1940-48. Jack Lindsay photograph.
I encountered this image in CVA’s online holdings a couple of months ago. I was initially puzzled as to where this service station was located; but it didn’t take too long for me to realize that this was the SE corner of Terminal Ave. at Main St. and that the buildings just behind the filling station were the structures that remain there today, in the heart of the former False Creek flats. I have later realized that the industrial buildings are on Heritage Vancouver’s 2015 “Top 10” Watch List and are part of what that organization considers to be historically threatened in the city.
Al Deeming’s Union 76 gasoline franchise is long-gone and last year was replaced with an experimental move toward modular housing. The industrial buildings in the background once housed Neon Products’ site (260 Terminal), BC Valve Company (250 Terminal) and Massey Harris’s agricultural implement showroom (242 Terminal). The structures continue to stand today, although all with different tenants. Today, only Neon Products maintains a business presence in Vancouver (at 1865 Clark Dr.) with its 1940s name.
Terminal & Main NOW: 2018, MDM Photograph.
Crop of CVA – Can P23.2 – An even EARLIER shot of the area. A perspective view from the north of Canadian National Railway (today’s “Pacific Central”) Station, Thornton Park, and the Service Station and other businesses (including Massey Harris Farm Implements building) along Terminal near Main Street. ca1932. Leonard J Frank photo.
Bentley Collingwood Hilliam (1890-1968). Portrait from BCH’s autobiography, Flotsam’s Follies. London: Arthur Barron, Ltd., 1948.
B. C. Hilliam immigrated to Canada in 1911 from England, with his mother, when he was 21. Although they initially stopped in Calgary, they moved quickly from there, briefly to Fernie, and finally settled in North Vancouver.
Hilliam had some experience writing for a newspaper in England and he was soon hired by the North Vancouver bi-weekly paper. He worked at this for a couple of years. In 1914, however, Vancouver was in the midst of promoting its first city “Pageant” and Hilliam’s composition, “Here’s a Ho! Vancouver” (aka “A Toast to Vancouver”) was chosen to be included on the program of the Pageant concert in June. “Here’s a Ho!”, with lyrics written by Pauline Johnson (Vancouver’s well-known native daughter who died the year prior to the Pageant), was a hit among Vancouver residents of the time:
Then here’s a Ho! Vancouver in wine of the bonniest hue,
With a hand on my hip and a cup at my lip and a love in my life for you.
For you are a jolly good fellow with a great big heart, I know;
So I drink this toast to the “Queen of the Coast!”,
Vancouver, here’s a Ho! (1)
It must be said that Johnson’s lyrics don’t travel well into the early 21st century!
VPL 21033 Portrait of Bernard Aitken Tweedale. 1920. Dominion Photo.
But it isn’t an exaggeration to claim that Hilliam’s melody for “Here’s a Ho!” made his name in Vancouver. (2) Scarcely six months after the Pageant, the Chilliwack newspaper was advertising Hilliam as “British Columbia’s foremost entertainer.” Furthermore, a full-scale musical comedy which was written by Hilliam and set in Greater Vancouver would be presented over the 1914 Christmas holidays at the Imperial Theatre (on Main near Georgia Street): “The Belle of Burrard” was met with rave reviews by drama critics and Vancouver residents alike. Hilliam composed the music and wrote the script for “The Belle” and a local man, Bernard Tweedale, was stage manager.
There were some musical numbers introduced in “The Belle” which were later recycled by Hilliam for use in later productions. One of these poked a bit of fun at the red-hot real estate market in Vancouver at the time. It was called “Lottie Has Lots and Lots of Lots”:
Lottie has lots and lots of lots in all the most outlandish spots;
It takes her a week by motor-car to find out where the new ones are;
In Kitsilano she’s two for sale, and in Lulu Island and Kerrisdale;
At Jericho Beach she owns some sites
and in Fairview, Burnaby, Shaughnessy Heights;
In Newport, Hollyburn, English Bay, in North Vancouver and Point Grey;
Oh — gee whiz! It’s driving ’em fairly dotty,
Scouring the place at a terrible pace
Looking for lots for Lottie! (3)
The Courtney Review Apr 29, 1915.
In 1915, Hilliam wrote and composed a series of productions called the “1915 Follies”. The cast of “The Follies” changed somewhat over the course of the year, but Hilliam remained a central figure in each of them and probably was the primary draw. Later in 1915, the company even went on tour across British Columbia, with stops in such locations as Victoria, Courtney, and Kelowna. When they attempted to take the Follies on a trans-Canadian tour, however, they proved less successful, and pulled the plug on the tour after getting no further east than Calgary.
The Follies included a number of noteworthy musical pieces. One of these was a war-themed, patriotic number, with words and music by Hilliam, entitled “The H’Allies H’Owe A H’awful Lot to H’Us”:
Do you want to see a patriotic picture?
Peep into our parlour any night.
See h’our little family h’assembled
Workin’ for the boys who’ve gone to fight.
Mother’s in command of the proceedings,
Lizzy is a kind of h’aide-de-camp.
I collect the h’articles and pack them,
H’assisted by the twins and little Tom.
Sally’s sendin’ cigarettes fot sergeants,
Flora’s sendin’ flannel for the French;
Papa’s busy packing pipes for privates,
Tobacco for the tommies in the trench.
Nelly’s knittin’ nighties for the Nivy,
Never seen the folks in such a fuss,
Though I says it now as didn’t oughter,
The h’Allies ‘howe a h’awful lot to h’us.
Talk about the cleanin’ in the springtime,
Nothin’ to the mess we’re in today!
Sleepin’ helmets dangle from the chair tops,
H’and on the floor a wonderful h’array.
Mother’s in the middle of the debris,
Only head and shoulders can be seen,
Clicking of the scissors and the needles
Minglin’ with Penelope’s machine.
Clara’s sendin’ cholera belts to corporals,
Susan’s sendin’ sweaters to the Serbs,
Gwen is givin’ garments for the gunners,
H’and many of the shirts are brother ‘Erbs.
Ruth is rustling rubbers for the Russians,
No one ever dreams of feedin’ puss.
Though I says it now as didn’t oughter,
The h’Allies h’owe a h’awful lot to h’us. (4)
I know that there was a much more potent connection in Canada with England at the time than is true today. But I have difficulty believing that there were very many Canadians who spoke with this thick, h-ridden, ing-absent (was this a sort of visual cockney?) accent. Vancouver residents, however, seemed to overlook this flaw (if, indeed, they so perceived it), embracing anything produced by Hilliam with great enthusiasm.
In July, 1915, Hilliam was a participant in a Great War fundraising event, sponsored by the Vancouver Daily World, to collect funds for guns for the British Empire and her allies.
“Me” – a drawing from the book, “Chuckles: This Nonsense”, by J. C. Alden, 1920. Drawing of and by the book’s illustrator, Hilliam.
In September, H. Sheridan-Bickers organized a number of local artists, including Hilliam, to perform in aid of the Canadian Patriotic Fund. The name given to this group of entertainers was “The Smart Set”. The group would perform again in December to benefit the Red Cross Society.
In February, 1916, Hilliam enlisted in the Canadian Over-Seas Expeditionary Force and was made, initially, a Lance Corporal. He was part of the Canadian Engineers (according to his wartime personnel record, his trade was “registered carpenter”). He was soon given a commission, however, and Lieut. Hilliam was given responsibility for recruitment concerts and Canadian camp entertainment for troops stationed in Canada before they were sent overseas. For this task, he was stationed in Ottawa.
There were at least a couple of occasions during the war when Hilliam was in Vancouver: for concerts in 1916 to benefit the Returned Soldiers Club. One of these was in January (“Y’Olde Time Mastodon Minstrels” concert held at the ‘old’ Orpheum – when it was in the former Opera House on the west side of Granville) . I don’t know what it was that persuaded Hilliam to choose a Minstrel theme for a Canadian wartime fundraiser. The first part of the evening consisted of “Back to Dixie Land”, followed by “I Long to Lay My Head on Mother’s Knee”, and rounded out with “Alabama Jubilee” and “My Little Gray Home in the West”! The other numbers that were performed prior to the intermission were more traditional fare. They included “Looking for Lots for Lottie” (Hilliam) and “Take Me Back to Canada”. Things got weird again after the intermission, though, with music featuring The Coon Band Orchestra!
Perhaps word came down from on high subsequent to the January Minstrel event that the December 1916 fundraiser should be tamer. The December concert (held at the Dominion Theatre at Granville near Nelson) was certainly more like a typical “1915 Follies” or “Smart Set” event: The evening kicked off with “Here’s a Ho, Vancouver!” and concluded with a “Piano Revue (including suggestions of Rubinstein, Mendelssohn, Liszt and Tchaikowsky)”, doubtless with Lieut. Hilliam at the piano.
Following the armistice, Hilliam moved to New York City. He had been introduced to that larger and, presumably, more-critical audience towards the end of the War in a concert presented in NYC’s Hippodrome. He was a huge hit there, too, and he decided to make his home in Manhattan for about six years after the War. Later, he returned to Mother England where he ultimately teamed up with Australian, Malcolm McEachern, to form the musical comedic duo of Mr. Flotsam (Hilliam) and Mr. Jetsam until McEachern’s death in 1945. Hilliam died in 1968.
It is striking to me that Hilliam was able in such a brief period (about two years) and at such a young age (about 25) to captivate the City of Vancouver, an at-the-time relatively unsophisticated town and then continue, from strength to strength, elsewhere in British Columbia, in other parts of Canada, at NYC, and then, together with McEachern and the magic of the wireless, onto the international stage.
I wonder whether Hilliam would have had such a meteoric rise in popularity if he hadn’t moved to Vancouver when he did, where he could get his start in an environment in which there was much less competition for attention than in England.
Notes
(1) From: Book of the Pageant of Vancouver. Vancouver Summer Festival Association, June 1914. The Vancouver Pageant was held in June 1914, complete with a concert at the Horse Show Building near Stanley Park and a full-scale parade with many floats). The exuberance shown by Vancouver residents for the city’s first official “summer festival” was muted somewhat by August when Canada joined the Great War. It isn’t clear to me if Vancouver ever repeated her first Pageant in subsequent years (as seems initially to have been the plan).
(2) The full sheet music of “Here’s a Ho!” may be found here. Also on this site there is a midi file of the tune. Parts of the midi seem okay, but part way through for some mysterious reason, the pace of the music slows quite dramatically.
(3) Flotsam’s Follies. by B. C. Hilliam. London: Arthur Barron, Ltd., 1948, p.22. This volume is available in Vancouver Public Library (it is a reference book, however, and so cannot be borrowed; it is retrievable, however, for reading at the Central Branch, with staff assistance, from compact shelving). I highly recommend it as a very good read. Although some of Hilliam’s early recollections seem to me to be less than wholly historically accurate, he is a very good storyteller!
(4) Victoria to Vimy: The First World War Collections of the University of Victoria Libraries: Florence Westman’s scrapbook. This is an amazing mine of Great War recollections collected by one person. Ms. Westman’s scrapbook (see link at the bottom of the webpage) runs to well over 300 pages! Included among those pages are several Hilliam photos, a few of his sketches, wartime programs, including a couple of Vancouver theatre programs from that period, and several newspaper articles in which he is mentioned.
Handwriting on the verso of these portraits reads “Albert Edward Beck” and “Mary Beck (Cooper)”. MDM collection.
I recently added these two portrait photos to my collection. When I saw them at the vendor’s shop, I thought that the handwriting on the backs of each looked the same; and I was pretty sure that the surnames scrawled upon each were the same. A little bit of research revealed that the male, Albert Edward Beck (1860-1940), was the son of the female, Mary Beck (nee Cooper).
Pinning down the dates the photos were made was trickier. Vancouver Photographic Company was in business (according to Camera Workers) from 1887-1892; Wadds Bros. from 1892-ca1900. I am guessing from her image, that Mrs. Beck was about 65 when her photo was taken. Since I know from the 1901 census that she was 75 in 1901 (and living in Vancouver with her son and his family), I’m guessing that her portrait was taken ca1892. A. E. Beck’s portrait was made a bit earlier, I think. He was born in 1860 and apparently arrived in Vancouver in 1886 (although his name wasn’t included in the first Vancouver voter’s list, created October, 1886). I’d say from his image above that he wasn’t much older than 25 when it was made, so I’m guessing that his portrait was made ca1888. This guess is bolstered, I think, by an image of him with the Vancouver Eleven Cricket Team which was made the same year. In this image, he appears to be about the same age as he is in the portrait (although his beard is gone; of his facial hair,only the moustache remains).
Sp P6 – [The Vancouver Eleven Cricket Team on the Cambie Street Grounds on Dominion Day] July 1, 1888. Beck is in the front row (seated) on the far right. (And Al Larwill makes an appearance, too. Although CVA made a typographical error when inputing Larwill’s name in their online collection. He is standing, second from left).
Beck was a local lawyer in Vancouver’s early years (1888-1907; 1914-33); during the 7-year interim from 1907-14, he worked for the B.C. Electric Railway as their solicitor and claims agent. After his stint with BCER, he returned to private practice until retiring in 1933. Shortly after beginning his practice in Vancouver, he was appointed the Registrar of the B.C. Supreme and County Courts for the Vancouver district. In 1900, he was made Queen’s Counsel (QC).
He did his legal training at Osgoode Hall (Toronto) before he and his wife moved to Vancouver. There is evidence that he articled for local attorney, John Boultbee. He also served as clerk to famous pioneer judge, Sir Matthew Begbie.
In 1887, Queen Victoria’s jubilee year, Beck was appointed to the improbable position of the “Music and Dancing” committee of Vancouver festivities. It’s my suspicion that he was told by John Boultbee (who was also on a jubilee-related committee) that Beck should get involved with this as a way of mixing with others in the community and bringing his name to the fore.
Beck’s early office was at 15 Cordova (adjacent to where the Boulder Hotel would be constructed within a few years) – near the NW corner of Cordova and Carrall. His daughter, (Marion) Elma, would, in Beck’s later years, join him in his practice (his son, Marshall, would take another professional route: accounting). Elma married Henry Lindsay; she died at 80 years of age in 1976 at Ganges, Salt Spring Island.
Str P77 – A.E. Beck’s Law Office on second floor, ca 1890. (According to early city directories, the address of his practice in this period was 15 Cordova).
A. E. Beck was married to Esther Louisa Marshall, prior to coming west from Ontario. The two of them were both born in that province (he in Sarnia; she in Port Hope). Esther died in March, 1940 and A. E. passed in November of the same year.
Mr. Beck’s parents were John Beck (b England) and Mary Jane Cooper (b New Brunswick). Mary lived with A E Beck’s family in 1901, and presumably continued to do so until her passing. John, I’m assuming, died in Ontario and subsequently Mary came west to stay with AEB and family.
CVA 1477-169 – Large group of boys with lunch bags standing in front of building, 19-
This photograph by an unidentified photographer is, without a doubt, taken in front of the Vancouver World building (aka the Bekins building and still later the Sun Tower). The date of the photo is unknown, but I’m willing to bet that it was made shortly after the World Building was erected in 1912.
The boys (and young men) in the image look to me like newsboys (no doubt, employed by the Vancouver World newspaper) who had gathered for this photo in the morning shortly before or after delivery of the early edition, with their lunch sacks in hand. The gent at left foreground seems to be trying to gather the lads into good photo-formation. I suspect he is the photographer’s assistant. Poor guy, it looks like a case of trying to herd cats! It’s fun to zoom in on the boys at different places. They look like a bunch of characters!
At one time, there was an eating establishment on the ninth floor of the building called the “Nine Maidens” cafeteria, named for the maidens (aka “caryatids“, creations of the great and prolific Vancouver sculptor, Charles Marega) which enhance the exterior appearance of the building. I have no idea if there is a cafeteria today in the building, but I rather doubt it.
CVA 70-32 – Sun Tower, exterior [Beatty Street facade] detail, 1973, cropped by mdm. Art Grice photo.
Alan Beech, pulling the proverbial rabbit out of a hat. T. Eaton’s Stores “Coastal Currents” (Dec. 1955) magazine. R Cobbett photo. From Gordon Poppy’s collection. Used with permission of Mr Poppy.
Alan Beech was a photographer and photo finisher for Spencer’s and (after Spencer’s sold up) for T. Eaton’s Co. department stores in Vancouver. He was also an amateur magician.
CVA 447-97 – Molson Bank Bldg. 1973 Walter E Frost.
Alan was in Eaton’s Advertising and Sales Promotion/Display department which was located in the former Molson Bank Building at the NE corner of Hastings at Seymour (the site, today, of Harbour Centre) across Seymour from the Empire Building. Beech’s job was to take photographs of store merchandise for newspaper ads and other promotional organs. He was also responsible for finishing the photos he took in the dark room. But his longtime hobby was magic.
Alan Eccles Beech was born in Maidenhead, England in 1918 to Dr. Stuart Beech and his wife, Muriel Scamander Clark.¹ Both of Alan’s parents were born in India and his dad was a physician with the rank of captain in the Canadian Army Medical Corps during the Great War. According to Stuart’s wartime personnel records, he was slight of build (119 pounds!) and “went sick” a month after the Battle of Vimy Ridge in May 1917. There are indications in his records that he was at Vimy for the battle and was “exposed” to something (mustard gas?) which caused a shadow to appear on X-ray images of his lungs. He was sent to London for three months of “home service” in the summer of 1917, which, presumably, is when Alan was conceived. Stuart was demobilized in 1919 and returned with his small family to British Columbia (where he had practiced medicine before the war), settling in Ashcroft for awhile before moving to Salmon Arm in 1924, where he practiced until his death in 1939. Later that year, Alan married Helen Mills and the two of them later settled in Vancouver in the early 1940s.
Alan first became interested in magic when he was a kid, growing up in Salmon Arm. Said Coastal Currents (an Eaton’s corporate magazine with a focus on BC Eaton’s employees), in a December, 1955 profile about Alan:
While still a youngster in Salmon Arm, B.C. Alan staged shows for the neighbourhood children. He moved to Vancouver and here his interest in this pastime was enhanced after seeing a magician perform. He bought all the books he could on the subject and began a diligent practise of the art. He observed ever prestidigitator’s act he could take in, fraternized and compared notes with many amateur magicians.
Alan gave his first magic show in front of an audience on November 18, 1944. Between then and 1976 (the last date for which information appears to be available regarding Alan) he must have performed on several hundred occasions.
He was a member of the local magic club, Vancouver’s Magic Circle, which was (and is) composed exclusively of amateur magicians who hold full-time jobs doing other things and perform only as magic hobbyists. Alan won at least three of the trophies offered by the Magic Circle to its members: in 1952, he won the William Shelley Trophy “for the best stage presentation”; in 1966 he won the Cecil Ackery Comedy Trophy; and in 1976, he was awarded the Wilf Rutherford Trophy for the “best children appeal show”.
I have searched high and low for some indication in the public record of Alan Beech’s death year. But I have turned up nothing. I’m almost prepared to conclude that Alan’s final illusion was that of dodging death. After all, in our world of documentation, if a vital statistic isn’t confirmed in written form, did it really happen?
Update:
Extra! Extra! Alan died on August 31 1998 at age 80.
CVA 180-2385 – Esso display, the marvel of Marvelube magic show. 1953. No attribution. PNE Photo. The magician looks to me (and to Gordon Poppy) like Alan Beech.
Notes
¹Our Alan Beech had an uncle who, like Alan’s father, Dr Stuart Beech, was also a physician, and who, confusingly, was also named Alan.
Thanks to Gordon Poppy for sharing this post idea and for filling in some of the blanks pertaining to the life of Alan E. Beech.
4430 Beatrice Street (Near Kingsway), as it appears today. Former site of B.C. Maternity Hospital (1922-1930) in Cedar Cottage (East Vancouver) neighbourhood. MDM Photo, 2017.
I’ve recently made the acquaintance of Gordon Poppy. He is 89 years old and he shared with me that he was born at the B.C. Maternity Hospital in the community of Cedar Cottage (in what was then within the Municipality of South Vancouver but today is part of the City of Vancouver). When I told Gordon that I’d never heard of that hospital before, he said it is still standing, although it seems currently to be a single family dwelling.
This called for a field trip to Beatrice Street to photograph the property and not a small amount of desk research. At the end of the day, however, I don’t have much to show for my work on this project. Here are the facts I’ve been able to dig up:
In 1920, 4430 Beatrice St. seems to have been the residence of Samuel J. Brown. (The building was vacant in 1921).
B. C. Maternity Hospital was initially listed in the Vancouver directory in 1922 and was shown for the last time in the 1930 issue (at 4430 Beatrice St. for all of the hospital’s 8-year lifespan).
Mrs. Mary Ann Butters (1861-1946) is listed in the 1920s issues of Vancouver directory as the “Matron” and as resident at “B. C. Maternity Hospital”.
After the hospital evidently closed sometime in 1930 (Mrs Butters would have been just shy of her 70th birthday that year), it was occupied by members of the Wedgbury family (Lily Wedgbury was Mary Butters’ daughter) and by Mary Butters for the rest of her days. She died in 1946 at the age of 85.
I hunted for a long time to find an ‘official’ mention of B. C. Maternity Hospital. Neither staff at the City of Vancouver Archives nor librarians at the central branch of the Vancouver Public Library had heard of the institution nor had they any record of it in their holdings.
Finally, today, while doing a last bit of due diligence, I happened across a mention within the Proceedings of the 30th Annual Convention of the B. C. Hospitals’ Association, August 19-22, 1930. On p.193 of this document in the “List of Licensed Private Hospitals” in the province, Mrs. M. Butters appears as the “licensee” of “B. C. Maternity Home” (note: not shown here as “Hospital”). The list is interesting not only for its inclusion of B. C. Maternity Home, but also for listing several other institutions which were new to me (see below), such as Fairview Convalescent Home and Chatham House Private Hospital (these two were located within a block of each other on West 15th Avenue).
It looks like 4430 Beatrice was a single family dwelling before becoming B.C. Maternity Hospital (according to some accounts, the house was built in 1905, at which time, this section of Beatrice Street was called Banks Avenue). Evidence suggests that as of the early 1930s, the former hospital reverted to being a private residence. As of 1955, the Wedgbury family was still showing in the Vancouver directory as occupying the property (Mrs Butters daughter, Lily Wedgbury, died that year).
CVA 586-4372 – Canadian Street Car Advertising bus shots 1946 Don Coltman. The bus was painted in olive or grey (it’s hard to be sure which in this black and white photo). CVA doubtless arrived at the year for this photo from the poster applied (with tape!) to the rear of the bus above: a March of Dimes campaign poster for 1946. The poster at the front of the bus (apparently purposely obscuring the “B. C. Electric Railway” logo) seems to be anti-littering propaganda.
The buses shown above and below¹ are some very early examples of transit that was powered by fuel (rather than electricity, as with the electric railway or trolleys). According to Kelly & Francis in Transit in British Columbia: The First Hundred Years, by the start of WWII, the bus fleet in Vancouver numbered 25:
Transit was so heavily used during the war that the government’s war allocations board in Ottawa became responsible for new bus orders for all Canadian cities. The board was headed by Sig Sigmundson, who later became transportation manager for the BCER. Buses began arriving in Vancouver painted their wartime colours of olive green or grey, and were quickly placed in service. (p. 89)
The location where the buses were parked seems to have been the Cambie Garage which was situated on Cambie between 14th and 16th Avenues (thanks to Angus McIntyre for his comment below which made note of this and other details).
CVA 586-4371 – Canadian Street Car Advertising bus shots 1946 Don Coltman. The poster at the rear of the bus appears to be for a popular drink: Kik. The poster at the front of the bus seems to be for Vaudeville performances by Lili St. Cyr. Tom Carter has shared with me that, at this time, St. Cyr was playing at the Beacon/Odeon Theatre (on Hastings). Thanks, Tom!
Notes
¹These images may be the same bus, photographed from different angles.
Update: This was initially posted October 27, 2017
CVA 99-895 – Cenotaph, 11 Nov 1920. Stuart Thomson.
This makeshift-looking, wooden cenotaph was located at the South Vancouver Municipal Hall – formerly SW corner of Fraser St. at 41st Ave.; across from Mountain View Cemetery; today, it is the site of John Oliver School. (There were distinct municipalities of Vancouver, South Vancouver, and Point Grey until 1929 when the three municipalities were merged into a single City of Vancouver).
Victory Square was still four years from being ready for its unveiling for its new purpose as a memorial to ‘the boys’ lost in World War I (and, later, those Canadians who died in other major conflicts).
Apparently, post-WW1 memorial construction was slow in happening and so it was left to the Women’s Auxiliary of the South Vancouver branch of the Great War Veterans’ Association to fill the gap created by tardy municipal leaders¹:
[T]he auxiliary met and unanimously decided that if other organizations appeared to be forgetful they were not. . . . [A] suitable spot was chosen and plans were at once decided on for erection. Owing to the short time left before Armistice Day, November 11, a temporary cenotaph will be erected and the permanent structure will be put up later. The idea of the cenotaph is that on each anniversary of the death of of a South Vancouver hero the auxiliary will place a wreath in his memory on the memorial. His name, rank and date of death will be duly inscribed thereon.
(Vancouver World. November 6, 1920)
The more permanent memorial was erected in 1926 at South Vancouver Municipal Park (just a few blocks away at Ross St. and E. 41st Ave.)
A friend pointed out that the creator of the temporary cenotaph shown above made a singular/plural grammatical error. It looked that way to me, too (We thought it ought to read “their names shall live forevermore.”) However, I then noticed that this ‘error’ was also on the Victory Square Cenotaph, where it claims – in slightly more King James-y English – that “their name liveth forevermore”. Hmm.
Upon doing a bit of research, I have learned that “Their name…” is a direct quote from the King James version of the apocryphal Book of Sirach 44:14 (quoted below, along with verse 1, to provide some context):
Let us now praise famous men, and our fathers that begat us….
Their bodies are buried in peace; but their name liveth for evermore. (Emphasis mine; why it is that ‘bodies’ is shown in the plural form while ‘name’ is translated as singular, I don’t know.)
Presumably, South Vancouver leaders of the ’20s didn’t feel free to edit the King James version of the apocrypha!²
Notes
¹I’m indebted to Robert at WestEndVancouver for correcting my conclusion in the original version of this post that the location of the cenotaph was Mountain View Cemetery. Thanks, Robert!
²The more contemporary versions of Sirach 44:14 use ‘names’ instead of ‘name’.
The screen grabs that appear above are taken from this film. CVA describes part of the film as showing “the Georgia Hotel, the Court House (now Vancouver Art Gallery), a parade in downtown Vancouver, [and] various scenes with automobiles…”¹
The feature of each of the shots above to which I wish to draw attention is what appear to be Maple Leaf flags. They are all over downtown at the time the film was made, evidently. They were affixed to the rear end of the automobiles driving away from the camera; there was one draped over the hotel entry; and they were vertically oriented for display on street standards.
The maple leaf illustrations are not the standardized/simplified versions to which Canadians have become accustomed to seeing on our national flag since it became such in 1965. Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson, the highest profile advocate for what became the Canadian flag, wanted the leaf to be readily drawn by children. The leaves on the flags that appear in the film are, perhaps, nearer in appearance to actual leaves of the maple. They bear an unfortunate resemblance, however, to the modern eye, to the leaf of the Cannabis plant.
When was the film made? I’m inclined to believe it’s a 1927 film (CVA claims it was produced ca1926). There are a couple of things that led me to this conclusion: (1) 1927 was the diamond jubilee (60th year anniversary) of confederation; (2) the presence of at least one royal symbol – in the image of the car parked in front of the hotel (look at the top left corner at the banner with a crown) – would tie in well with 1927, as Edward, Prince of Wales, visited Vancouver that year.
There is a CBC archive video here that touches on the national flag debate in 1964 and its controversial conclusion using the ‘closure’ tactic.
CVA 160-26 – City Hall; New Flag – Spread Out 1965 William O. Banfield photo. VAIW note: Mayor William Rathie (1963-66) is pictured raising the national flag to the left of the image.
Note
¹Tom Carter has pointed out that the exterior (and, I think, interior) shots were taken at the then-adjacent, now-demolished, Hotel Devonshire.
I-63128 – Crowds out for an event; possibly at English Bay. ca1895. Royal BC Archives. Photographer unknown.
This scene is most likely the beach on English Bay, ca 1895. The ladies and gents who appear here are dressed to the nines! The image, from the Royal BC Archives, seems to suffer from double exposure, but remains a good example of Victorian beachwear in Vancouver.
CVA – Port P193 – [Fire Chief John Howe Carlisle awarded the ‘Good Citizen’ medal by the Native Sons of B.C.] 1922 Stuart Thomson. (Note: The lady holding the bouquet and standing next to JHC is almost certainly his wife, Laura Carlisle).
J. H. Carlisle (1857-1941) accomplished several “firsts”. He was the first Sunday School Superintendent of First Baptist Church (FBC), before it was formally organized; his name was the first listed among the charter members of FBC when the church was organized; he was the first clerk of FBC; he was the first person honoured with the Good Citizen medal (in 1922), see photo above; and he was the first BC resident to be honoured with the King’s Police Medal (in 1923), see photo below. To my surprise, I’ve recently discovered that Carlisle also was FBC’s first formal “President” of the choir — whatever duties that post involved (VDW February 10, 1890). Mrs. Carlisle was the fist FBC organist of record.
Ironically, the “first” attributed to JHC most often – ‘first Vancouver Fire Chief’ – actually wasn’t. That honour went to Samuel Pedgrift (1886); he was followed by J. Blair (briefly); JHC became chief after Blair in the autumn of 1886 until 1888 (Carlisle’s term as chief began after the Great Fire of June 1886). Wilson McKinnon followed JHC’s initial 2-year term. But then Carlisle became chief again — this time for a period unmatched by any chief since: 39 years (1899-1928).
Chuck Davis’ website notes that in 1911 the VFD was ranked by a committee of international experts as among “the world’s best in efficiency and equipment”; and in 1917, it became Canada’s first completely motorized department.
Appropriately, the city’s first fireboat was named in honour of the man: the J. H. Carlisle.
For a photograph of JHC as a relatively young man, see the image and post here.
CVA – Port P140 – [Former Fire Chief J.H. Carlisle after receiving the King’s Police Medal from His Honour W.C. Nichol, Lieutenant governor of B.C.] April 1923 Stuart Thomson photo. (Again, Laura Carlisle, JHC’s wife, is the lady standing next to the chief).
CVA 99-1709 – “J.H. Carlisle” fireboat test run 1928 Stuart Thomson photo. (Note- Carlisle the man is standing amidships upon Carlisle the fireboat).
Chief J. H. Carlisle in younger days. From: Souvenir of the Vancouver Fire Department, 1901. 0024_Page 18_L. University of British Columbia Library. Rare Books and Special Collections. Published by Evans & Hastings for Firemen’s Benefit Association (Vancouver, BC). Photographer unknown.
CVA 677-503 – Front office, Cowan and Brookhouse (Printing and Publishing). 411 Dunsmuir Street. ca 1919. Canadian Photo Company. (The two leftmost people pictured are Arthur A. Brookhouse – standing – and (now, the widow) Mrs. Carrie Cowan – seated behind him. George Bartley – Mrs. Cowan’s brother – is the gent posed standing at the desk to right of Brookhouse).
CVA 677-504 – Printing room. Cowan and Brookhouse Printing and Publishing, 411 Dunsmuir Street. ca 1916. Canadian Photo Company.
The photos above were made by a photographer with Canadian Photo Co.; the photographer isn’t identified on the prints (nor by CVA), but they seem likely to have been made by gifted photographer, W. J. Moore.¹
The first image looks like the ‘upstairs’ component of (Harry) Cowan & (Arthur) Brookhouse printers and publishers. It was made in ‘management-land’, where fingernails are unstained by printer’s ink and work surfaces are tidy and spotless. The second image, on the other hand, appears to be taken ‘downstairs’. The workers appear hot and sweaty, and are doing the hard, dirty work of a printing establishment in the early years of the 20th century.
The two photos were taken in the Labor Temple (note: the correct spelling of Labor in this case is the American spelling, rather than the Canadian, “labour”). The Labor Temple still stands today at 411 Dunsmuir Street. (Past Tense has a good history of the Labor Temple, which had been known by the slightly less exalted name of Labor Hall when it was in the former Homer Street Methodist Church. Why the name was changed from hall to temple isn’t clear.)
Ad in BC Federationist
Cowan & Brookhouse printed B.C. Veterans Weekly and Vancouver Blighty, a periodical that served readers associated with local military hospitals (my thanks to L., of Past Tense, who commented below, for his sharp eyes in identifying the Blighty in the second photo). It also looks likely (given the image below) that Cowan & Brookhouse printed The Independent (which appears to have been a labour organ, 1900-03).
CVA 677-828 – Jos. Niles, H. George. Bartley, and Harry Cowan [standing outside office of] the Independent, 312 Homer Street 1900.
Harry Cowan died in July, 1915 from complications associated with abdominal surgery. Cowan & Brookhouse continued to operate for a number of years after Cowan’s death, finally wrapping up by about 1925. Arthur Brookhouse continued to work at the printing business. He worked for various printing outfits as a composer (including Clarke & Stuart, A. H. Timms Printers, and The Sun). By 1945, he also edited The Shoulder Strap, the periodical of the B.C. Provincial Police. Brookhouse died in 1948.
It was thought, for awhile, that another local printing firm, Rose, Cowan & Latta, may have been an amalgam of Cowan & Brookhouse and Latta & Co. But there doesn’t seem to be any evidence of that. The Cowan who hooked up with Rose and Latta was John Bruce Cowan; and there is nothing to suggest that John Bruce was a direct relation of Harry Cowan.
Note
¹David Mattison’s Camera Workers site here notes that “W.F. McConnell managed the Canadian Photo Co. (1916-19__) along with William J. Moore (1916-1917)” and later remarks of Moore that “He operated under his own name from 1913-1915, then worked for the Canadian Photo Co. (1916-1917). He established a successful operation under his name around 1920. One of his specialties was taking panoramic photographs.”
A couple of posts ago, I presented an artist’s sketch by Reginald Blunden of the first permanent structure of First Baptist Church. But I didn’t say very much about that structure, how it came to be, where it was located, nor what ultimately happened to the building after the church vacated it late in 1889.
In late 1886, two lots were secured from the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) on Westminster Avenue by FBC (although it wouldn’t officially be “First Baptist Church” until after it formally organized a few weeks before the congregation began meeting in the chapel). The building, which was built in part by congregants, was a wee frame structure measuring roughly 24×35 feet. The pews were of rough wooden construction and the interior was lit by “humble oil lamps” which illuminated the place, but only just. According to FBC’s principal historians, there was no baptismal font (the first baptism of Robert Palmer in May 1887 was held in False Creek roughly where the Pacific Central Station stands today) nor was there a pulpit, per se. All told, the building is thought to have cost about $700. And – in sharp contrast with FBC’s anticipated financial situation upon completion of the current building project – the first Vancouver Baptist structure left the congregation with no debt!¹
Pinning Down the Chapel’s Location
Vancouver’s first archivist, J. S. Matthews, reported from an interview with early Baptist, Rev. P. C. Parker, that the church was on Main “on the east side between Hastings and Dupont [now East Pender] streets. (Early Vancouver, Vol. 5, p.158). But the Chapel lots did not not face the street. They were located on the back lane behind Main.²
The map below is Sheet 13 of Goad’s Vancouver Fire Insurance Map of 1897. In the top left corner, is the block that interests us: that of the east side of Westminster (Main St.) between Hastings to the north and Dupont (later known as Princess St., and, ultimately, as East Pender) to the south. Carmichael identified the lot on which the building stood as being on “the back of [the] lot, now 432 Main St.” I’ve annotated the map with “FBC Chapel” on the rear of the lot which was 432 Main St.
Goad’s Fire Insurance Map, 1897. From Sheet 13. An annotation is made by the author showing the lot on which I believe FBC’s chapel was located.
Post-Chapel Applications
The church occupied the chapel from early 1887 until late 1889. Within a year after FBC vacated the chapel to take up occupancy in its new, much larger building (at the corner of Hamilton and Dunsmuir), the little one-storey structure was sold.
The buyer seems to have been the Malvina Coudron Hardware. Said Mrs. J. D. Cameron in J. S. Matthews’ Early Vancouver: “I remember the first church the Baptists had, quite well; I have attended service there; it was on [near?] the northeast corner of Dupont and Westminster Avenue. I remember them raising it; raised it high on stilts, and built a hardware store under it.” (Emphasis mine).³
Ch P95 – Exterior of Malvina Coudron hardware. The upper storey was formerly the Baptist Chapel), ca1890. Harry T. Devine photo.
The photo above shows the Malvina Coudron hardware shop around 1890, shortly after the main floor had been built in beneath the former chapel.
The photo below shows the block a few years later. Malvina Coudron is no more; it had been replaced with another hardware: Lewis & Sills. By 1910, it had become McPherson & Sons Gents furnishings. By 1919, the property had begun to embrace its place in the heart of Chinatown and 432 Main was occupied by Yick Co. Produce.
CVA 166-2 – Street Scene in Vancouver showing block of shops at 432 Westminster Avenue (Main Street), ca 1908. P T Timms photo.
The east side 400 block of Main Street appears as shown below, today. “FBC Chapel” is shown on this image to illustrate where I believe the chapel was situated in 1887-89.
View today from above the 400-block east side Main Street. Courtesy Google Maps.
The chapel was located just behind where Propaganda Coffee is today on 209 East Pender.
Notes
¹ W. M. Carmichael, These Sixty Years: 1887 -1947. Leslie J. Cummings. Our First Century: 1887-1987.
Artist’s sketch of First Baptist Church, Westminster Ave. It was built at the back of the lot (where the back lane is, just behind the lot occupied today by Propaganda Coffee (209 E. Pender St). This is the building (occupied until Fall, 1889) in which the Cowboy Evangelist would have preached. Courtesy: These Sixty Years: Being the Story of First Baptist Church, Vancouver BC. W. M. Carmichael. 1947. Artwork was by Reginald A. Blunden (1899-1953), a Vancouver commercial artist.
Rev. James B. Kennedy, the minister at First Baptist Church, invited self-styled Cowboy Evangelist, George W. Rasure, to preach at the evening service on Sunday, November 18, 1888.¹ He preached at FBC every evening for at least two weeks; perhaps as long as three weeks.
Kennedy became a big fan of Rasure and not only invited him to return to FBC’s pulpit on other occasions (in 1889), but he came to Rasure’s aid with publicly supportive comments when Rasure came under negative scrutiny in the press.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Backstory
Rasure was born in 1847 in Boone County, Kentucky and was raised in Louisville until he turned 14.² He joined the Union Army and fought in the U.S. Civil War. Following his discharge in 1866, he returned to Kentucky, where he was involved in a shooting incident with old army acquaintances. He was acquitted, however, as he’d acted in self-defence. He travelled to Texas where he became a herder on a ranch. He was promoted to ‘regular cowboy’ and spent the next 17 years of his life doing that. He was known throughout the area as being one of the wildest of cowboys.
In 1873, he went to Wyoming where he took charge of a cattle ranch. A band of outlaws headed by rogues known as ‘Parsimonious Bill’ and ‘Colorado Jack’ attacked the ranch and robbed him of nearly everything he owned. In 1883, he went to the home of his people who lived in Kansas. There, he was forced to sleep in a stable.
He claimed he got became very ill in that stable and during that time became convicted of the wickedness of his past life.He prayed that if God spared his life, he would dedicate his remaining years to His service. He shook off his illness and, true to his word, began to preach in the evenings.
He said goodbye to the cowboy life and real estate became his new day job. In the first year of buying and selling, he claimed he was worth $20,000 (which is roughly US$482,000, in 2017’s inflated money). And by 1887, according to the former-cowboy-now-realtor, he’d accumulated about $1 million of property in Wellington, Kansas.
The Many ‘Day Jobs’ of the Cowboy Evangelist
According to aninterview Rasure gave to the Vancouver Daily World, he had come to B.C. to stay. Indeed, he planned to leave for Tacoma within days to pick up his boxes which had been sent there via the Northern Pacific Railroad (from Kansas, presumably).“From what he has already seen of Vancouver and district, he has come to the conclusion to settle here, and is trying to buy out Tiffin’s Mill, at the head of the Inlet…” (VDW 25 October 1888)
Within two weeks of the interview, the World reported that Rasure had “just about completed” arrangements to purchase the lumber mill, which was located near Port Moody. It also reported that he had taken a house in the east end of Vancouver. (VDW 2 November 1888)
This plan to purchase the lumber mill seems to have come to naught. In a World column called “Port Moody Jottings”, just two years subsequent to the Rasure interview, no mention was made of him in connection with the mill (VDW 30 May 1890). And I could find no mention in any Vancouver city directory of Rasure having a residence in Vancouver. (He may well have owned or rented a home in the east end for a time, but it could be that his time in that residence was so brief as to not be included by directory staff).
By 1889, his attention seemed to shift from lumber in Port Moody to limestone in Yale (which is located about 240km east of Vancouver in the Fraser Valley). An April issue of the World reported that Rasure had “struck it rich” in a limestone quarry near Yale. “He is going into the burning business extensively.” (VDW 20 April 1889) It wasn’t long before the limestone business landed him in a spot of bother. There was a report in August that Rasure had been attacked by a knife-wielding employee in Yale, Michael Finnegan by name, who was distressed that Rasure hadn’t paid him back wages owing to him. Rasure was injured slightly in the incident. Finnegan was locked up and charged with assault. (VDW 17 August 1889)
By the end of 1889, Rasure started a ‘stable’ business in Vancouver located on Oppenheimer Street (now Cordova), between Carrall and Columbia. His ads for the business claimed “A fine lot of Carriage, Driving, and Saddle Horses” were available for sale. This business lasted less than 6 months. It was reported on March 5, 1890, that Rasure had been charged with violation of By-Law No. 97, which required him to have a license before engaging in business. (VDW 5 March 1890). There were no more ads for the stable business after March 1890. Presumably, Rasure decided that if he had to pay for a license and pay the fine for not getting one in the first place, that he couldn’t make an adequate profit.
Near the end of Rasure’s time in Vancouver, the World tartly commented that “Geo. W. Rasure, the renowned cowboy evangelist, was in the city to-day. His patriarchical hair is growing to such a degree that it is with difficulty that he was recognized.” (VDW 13 Aug 1891).
It surprises me that Rasure sought ‘day jobs’ in Vancouver in areas other than the one in which he had (by his own account) done so well, and which was a lucrative one for so many other men in Vancouver: real estate!
First Baptist Church
First Baptist had a longish period of admiration for Rasure. He spoke many times at FBC in 1888 and again in 1889.
In late 1888, a notice in the Detective indicated that Rasure was wanted in Kansas for embezzlement:
Fifty dollars reward – G W Rasure is wanted for embezzlement. Will pay the above reward for his arrest and detention. He is about 5 feet 11 inches tall, weight about 160 pounds, dark auburn hair, red face, full cheeks, sandy moustache, quick in action and a great talker. Is a member of the M. E. [Methodist Episcopal] church and of the order of Knights of Pythias. Preaches when he can. Operates under cloak of religion; is a great traveller, claims to be wealthy, loves fast horses and fast women, gambles. He is known as a reformed cowboy.
Cy Brookover, Sherriff, Greenwood County, Kansas³
This notice is not a shining example of objectivity. There is plenty of loaded language, including: “the cloak of religion” and “loves fast horses and fast women.”
Rasure denied publicly that he had embezzled anything. And Rev. J. B. Kennedy came to his defence. He stated, after a long meeting with Rasure and others that “he himself is convinced of Mr. Rasure’s innocence of the charge, and that his pulpit is still open to him.” It isn’t clear to me what was the outcome of the suit. (VDW 17 December 1888)
Whether he was invited to preach at First Baptist after J. B. Kennedy had moved on to another church in January 1890, isn’t clear. But it seems doubtful to me. In September 1889, the congregation had moved out of the wee chapel off Main Street just south of Hastings, and into their much more commodious structure at the corner of Hamilton and Dunsmuir. Kennedy had been the principal advocate for the Cowboy Evangelist, by all accounts. With the move into the newer, larger, and more orthodox-looking ecclesiastical structure, I’d argue that FBC had moved on from its rustic, pioneer beginnings and had outgrown the charms of the vernacular preacher.
Another Stage and Final Curtain
The last report pertaining to the cowboy evangelist in the Vancouver Daily World was in November 1891: “G. W. Rasure, the renowned cowboy evangelist, whose antics while in this city were somewhat erratic, has developed another stage. He crossed the Atlantic last month to Liverpool with a woman he stated here [in Vancouver, presumably] was his sister, but whom in England he passed off as his wife, giving their names as Mr. and Mrs. Kenwick.” (VDW 23 November 1891). What exactly this was all about, and what source the World had for this mildly outrageous claim, I don’t know.
His wife in 1891 seems to have been Joanna Pierson (m. 1884). There were two previous marriages: to Helena Ehlester (m. 1863) and Merilda McReynolds (m. 1877).
There was a notice placed, I assume, by Joanna Rasure in The People’s Voice, a newspaper of Wellington, Kansas, stating that she was tying to locate an insurance policy which Rasure was supposed to have held at the time of his death in Los Angeles, California. According to this article, he died in L.A. in 1896. There is no other more official record that I could find of Rasure’s death. (TPV, 16 November 1899)
George Rasure was, without a doubt, a colourful figure around whom no little controversy swirled. The Vancouver Daily World seems to have taken a view of his time in the city as being worthy of a cocked eyebrow.
Kansas newspapers, however, were less charitable. The Anthony (Kansas) Republican described him as being someone who “preached and prayed while he kept one eye open for business.” They summed up his character as being an “oleageneous aggregation of hypocrisy” (The Topeka StateJournal, 27 January 1890).
Notes
¹Rasure was neither the first nor the last person to describe himself as a “cowboy evangelist”. Among others who were contemporaries of Rasure were Sam Jones, S. W. Wesley (a Baptist who claimed to be a direct descendant of John Wesley, a founder of Methodism), and “Lampasas Jake”. An excerpt from a sermon by Jake which appeared in the Baltimore Sun on April 6, 1886, gives some idea of the flavour of his ‘vernacular preaching’ style: “How many of you’s ready to die with your boots on? Where’d you be to breakfast? Don’t any of you drunken, swearing, fighting, blaspheming, gambling, thieving, tin-horn, coffin-paint,exterminating galoots look at me ugly, because I know ye. I’ve been through the drive. You’re all in your sins.You know a fat, well-fed, well-cared-for, thoroughly-branded steer when you see one, and you can tell whose it is and where it belongs. There’s a man that owns it. There is a place for it to go. There’s a law to protect it. But the maverick — who’s is that? You’re all mavericks and worse. The maverick has no brand on him. He goes bellering about until somebody takes him in and clasps the branding iron on him. But you whelps,you’ve got the devil’s brand on you. You’ve got his lariat about you. He lets you have rope now, but he’ll haul you in when he wants firewood.” (Baltimore Sun 6 April 1886).
Lampasas Jake’s style reminds me of the fictional “Rev. Little Ed Pembrooke” of the Church of the Mighty Struggle, made famous on WKRP in Cincinnati (got to the 8 min. mark for the intro of Little Ed).
There have been more contemporary fellows who have described themselves as cowboy evangelists, including Lou Eilers (“Cowboy Evangelist; Trick Rope Artist; Plays the smallest mouth organ in the world.Guitar expert”) in the 1950s, Andy Stan (“Famous Cowboy Evangelist; Radio Singer and Guitarist”) in the 1960s, and Jack Jackson (“Singing Cowboy Evangelist”) in the 1990s.
²Many of the details in this section came from an interview given by Rasure to the Vancouver Daily World (VDW 25 October 1888).
³Genealogy Trails. See heading: “Rasure Wanted for Embezzlement”. Note: Although this is cited in Genealogy Trails as being in an issue of Detective published in early 1889, it seems that it was first published in a late 1888 issue.
William James Cavanagh (c1862-1915) was a complex man with a complicated life. He was born in Leeds County, ON (near Brockville). He left there for Western Canada by about 1887. He stayed in Manitoba for a number of years where he worked for a couple of shoe companies as a travelling salesman and later as a bookkeeper. Towards the end of his time in Manitoba, he tried his hand at being a realtor – a career for which apparently he was well suited. He made his way circa 1902 to a larger and more lucrative realty market: Vancouver.
He continued to ply the realty trade here. He worked first for Baker, Leeson Company, then he opened a real estate office on Cordova (opposite the Grand Theatre) which was called Cavanagh, Baker & Leeson. In 1906, he dissolved his partnership with Baker and Leeson and established a new partnership, this time with William M. Holden.
In 1907, Cavanagh was elected by acclamation to City Council (Ward 3) and was re-elected for another one-year term in January, 1908.¹
Ideas Man?
I wasn’t able to see much evidence that Cavanagh was a big ‘ideas’ man, and many of his views that have been preserved in the public record were not to his credit, in my opinion.
He wanted to allow the Vancouver Driving Club to build a speedway around the Brockton Point end of Stanley Park (VDW² May 14). This was set aside by Council, fortunately.
After his 1908 re-election, Cavanagh included, in his “thank you” letter to Vancouver residents, the following remark: “Now that the elections are over, I wish to state that there is not a man in the city more opposed to the influx of Asiatics than I am, and I will do all in my power to put a stop to them entering this part of our fair Dominion.” (VDW 11 Jan 1908). In holding these anti-Asian views, he was by no means unique in the Vancouver of his time.
But Cavanagh also held at least one forward-thinking notion (and one which, in part at least, was put into practice, although that happened after his death):
Ald. W. J. Cavanagh who has just returned from a tour of the eastern cities in Canada and the States will henceforth be an enthusiastic advocate of public parks in the center of the city…. The whole of the two blocks from Hastings to Dunsmuir, on which the courthouse and the Central schools stand, should be acquired at once and a new site be found for the schools. These two blocks would make an ideal site for a central park. (VDW 15 June 1908)
This is the earliest proposal I’ve seen for a park where Victory Square would be established following the Great War. (And Victory Square only takes up one block; if Cavanagh had had his ‘druthers’, it would also have included the land on which VCC’s downtown campus presently resides).
Cavanagh’s Downward Slide
The latter part of 1908 seems to have marked the beginning of William Cavanagh’s unhappy end.
Cavanagh liked to play the ponies; he held posts as vice-president and president of the Vancouver Jockey Club. I cannot prove that it was his love of horse racing and the gambling associated with it that led him to bankruptcy, but it seems probable. He was said to have lost “a fortune” in 1908.
His bankruptcy in 1908 led to his disqualification for holding his seat as a city alderman. There was a property qualification associated with aldermanic service at that time and all of his property was in the hands of his creditors by late 1908.
In April 1909, it was alleged by a Mr. Anderson, that Cavanagh had attempted to dispose of a piece of property (all of which, by then, in his creditors’ hands), and thereby defrauded his creditors.
Finally, on June 27, 1911, Cavanagh was arrested on a charge of bigamy. It was alleged that he married Lillian (Lilly) N. Campbell of Vancouver, while still married to Mary E. Cavanagh.
Greed of the Campbell Brothers
Lilly Campbell’s mother was Laura Campbell. Laura died in January, 1908. I don’t know what the terms of Laura Campbell’s will were, but whatever they were, it is clear that her two sons (Lilly’s brothers), Douglas and Graham, were not satisfied with them. The brothers wanted a bigger slice of Laura’s estate than she had left them. Apparently, Douglas and Graham had tried to negotiate a larger slice with their sister, Lilly, but she wasn’t having it.
Sometime in 1908, W. J. Cavanagh, on the advice of his physician, went to California. Lilly Campbell accompanied him. After they had been in California for about a week, they were wed.
Family War
The bigamy case against Cavanagh was not a civil suit. Bigamy was a crime, although I get the impression that even by this time, it was largely a dead-letter law; more often ignored than prosecuted, especially in cases such as this where the husband and his first wife had been living apart for a considerable period of time (according to one account, William and Mary had been living separately for 12 years).
It seems likely that Douglas and Graham Campbell had some influence with the Crown Prosecutor and persuaded him to bring the bigamy charge against Cavanagh. Press accounts of the bigamy trial contended that the Campbell brothers had instigated the trial to pressure their sister, Lilly, to come to their terms regarding their mothers’ estate. Indeed, Graham claimed during his testimony at the trial that he had considered bringing a charge of murder (of Laura) against Cavanagh — presumably to apply even more pressure on Lilly. (Campbell’s murder allegation seems not to have been taken seriously by the authorities).
Judge McInnes, the presiding judge at the bigamy trail, acquitted William Cavanagh of bigamy on a “technicality”. Cavanagh was plainly married to Mary Cavanagh when he married Lilly. But the Crown failed to prove that Cavanagh intended to marry Lilly when he set out for California with his soon-to-be-second-spouse. Because intent wasn’t proven, the judge found that the Canadian court didn’t have jurisdiction over the second marriage.
A Casualty of Labelling
William Cavanagh left Vancouver shortly after the trial (probably for Seattle, where he died four years later). He no doubt felt that his reputation had been tarnished by the trial, even though he was acquitted. But I don’t feel too sorry for Cavanagh. He knew he was taking the risk of a bigamy trial when he married Lilly.
The person I feel bad for is Lilly. She, Douglas, and Laura were all members of First Baptist Church in Vancouver. The letter reproduced below was written by the Church Clerk, on behalf of the officers of the church to a Mrs. Brooks who seems to have been a member of First’s membership review committee.
The clerk explains Mrs. Brooks’ task to her:
“A short time ago Mr. Cavanagh was in court for bigamy and althought (sic) he was acquitted we think Mrs. [Lilly] Cavanagh should explain why she does not attend church and if she can give good and sufficent (sic) reasons why her name should not be dropped [from the membership roll].
This letter, it seems to me, finds Lilly guilty of bigamy by association with William (even though he was acquitted). Furthermore, the clerk places the onus on Lilly to explain why she should not be dropped from church membership. The grounds for dropping her from membership, seem to be her lack of attendance, recently, at worship services. But the label “bigamy”, earlier in the sentence, had already poisoned the apple.
A letter from the Clerk of First Baptist Church to Mrs. Brooks (a member of FBC). Archives, First Baptist Church, Vancouver. March 23, 1912.
I had a look at the membership roll for this period, and confirmed that, sure enough, Lillian Campbell was dropped from membership in March 1912. And the reason given for the decision was not lack of church attendance, but “misconduct”. Douglas Campbell was also dropped from membership at FBC. But no reason was given in his case.
This wasn’t First Baptist’s finest hour, in my opinion.
Notes
¹Most of the details of WJC’s early life came from Westward Ho! magazine, 1907.
A funny thing happened at a pizza party I held recently for some of my friends (whom I’ve taken to referring to, collectively, as the History Five).
Neil brought with him a gift for the host and hostess that wasn’t a libation, but was instead a piece of Vancouver historical ephemera: a postcard with an apparent connection to First Baptist Church (he knows of my interest in Vancouver church history). It appears (front and verso) below.
The postcard was addressed to G. P. Hicks. From the postage mark, it seems it was sent in July, 1903. And the address shown for Hicks was his business address at the time: that of The Hicks & Lovick Piano Co. The message reads: “Special meeting local union executive. Thursday [evening] at First Baptist Church. Business very important. Come.” Signed A. E. Rigg (or perhaps Riggs), Sec. [Secretary].
The meeting on Thursday evening seems not to have been religious in nature. Why do I say that? First, the only Rigg I could find living in Vancouver around this time was a Prebyterian; and G. P. Hicks was a dyed-in-the-wool Methodist.¹ Second, there was reference in the message to the meeting being one of a “local union executive”. I think it’s safe to conclude that the union in question was a trade union. But which one? My conclusion is that it was the Amalgamated Society of Carpenters and Joiners. I reached that conclusion because the principal thing in common between Rigg and Hicks – as far as I can tell – is that they were both carpenters, at this time. That is the extent of what I know about Alex Rigg. Fortunately, there was more to be learned about George Hicks.
To my surprise, research into the postcard didn’t lead to insights about a Vancouver church, this time, but instead led me to discover a long-forgotten and yet important Vancouver maestro.
From ‘Builder of Objects’ to ‘Builder of Vocal Skills’
George Peake Hicks (1855-1919) was a carpenter in his early years. He probably retained his membership in the Carpenters and Joiners union even after he went into the business of piano sales with his brother, Gideon. The business was based in Victoria and, shortly after it started (by around the turn of the century), included a Vancouver shop at Hastings near Cambie.
While Gideon would continue in piano sales for several years (until 1922), George, by 1904, at age 49, had hired on with the Vancouver School Board as their first supervisor of music. The VSB job would prove to be critical in the rest of his career.
His task for VSB appears to have been one of teaching teachers the basics of music instruction so that they could be effective in presenting musical subjects to the primary and secondary students in their charge. In one of Hicks’ reports to the School Trustees, he explained that he had been presenting musical theory as conveyed in William H. Cummings’ Rudiments of Music (1877) to the teachers and that most of them had passed an exam on the content of the book. The School Board seemed tangibly to appreciate Hicks’ work. In 1906 he was making $100/month; that was raised to $150 by 1911 and to $175 by 1915.
Within a few years of taking on the task of musical leadership within Vancouver’s public schools, Hicks decided that it would be a good thing to establish a Vancouver Musical Society.² The point of the society, initially, was to provide a place for former secondary students to have somewhere to advance their musical skills after they left school. He was the conductor. By 1919, the membership of the group had swollen to two hundred (plus) choristers and musicians.
On August 4, 1919, the Vancouver Musical Society presented what had become their annual Messiah concert. At the conclusion of the oratorio, Mayor Gale presented Hicks with a baton as a token of the appreciation of the people of Vancouver for all of his musical efforts on their behalf. Hicks’ claimed “My prayer has been answered. I have reached my ambition in my musical career.”³ By August 22, he was dead.
Today, George P. Hicks is a name that, sadly, has been largely forgotten by most of the people of Vancouver. He quietly went about his task of increasing musical appreciation and skill among regular folks. And he trained others who had special musical talent (such as Olga McAlpine, who graduated from Vancouver High School at Dunsmuir and Cambie to earn concert applause in New York City and on the Orpheum Theatre concert circuit).
CVA 243-1 – Vancouver Festival Choir and Orchestra (I suspect that, in fact, this was the Vancouver Music Society or perhaps the Peace Choir and Orchestra). Maestro: George P. Hicks (front row, with what appears to be a corsage above his ribbon). August, 1919. Stuart Thomson photo.
Notes
¹ George’s brother, James was the pastor at Sixth Avenue Methodist (Vancouver) for a number of years; brother John P. Hicks was editor of the Methodist Recorder (based in Esquimalt).
² This group has been known variously as the “Vancouver Festival Choir (and Orchestra)” and as the “Vancouver Choral Society”.
Artwork (apparently for use in a newspaper ad) based on photo of a downtown Greyhound Bus depot, n.d. (I’m guessing ca early 1970s, judging from the appearance of fashions and of the automobiles in the image), no photographer credited.
I ran across this photo at a flea market about 6 months ago. I bought it because it looked to me to be an image of the Vancouver downtown Greyhound Bus depot when it was located at the current parking lot (which is slated to be the future site of Vancouver Art Gallery) bounded by Dunsmuir (north), Georgia (south), Beatty (east), and Cambie (west); the lot which has sometimes been called “Larwill Park“, and more often, “Cambie Street Grounds”.
MAP 748 – Plan of Cambie St. grounds, aka Larwill Park. 1915. (Note: False Creek “tidal water” came up to a point parallel with the Beatty Street Drill Hall at the time this was drawn (and just under the first Georgia Street Viaduct).
But closer inspection led me to conclude that this wasn’t Vancouver’s depot. The evidence in the photo in fact led me to believe that this was an image of Edmonton’s former depot.
I had thought when I first saw the image that it was shot toward the southwest corner of Beatty and Dunsmuir. But I saw, upon examining the street signs at the corner of the image, that it was, instead, 102nd Street and 102nd Avenue.
Another clue that this was an Edmonton photo was the logo on the telephone booth. Edmonton had its own municipally-owned phone company until it was swallowed by TELUS in 1995: Edmonton Telephones. (This gently amusing ad was made for EdTel made by Leonard Nimoy in 1981). The corporation had a distinctive logo which was quite different from that of BC Tel. The logo on the phone booth seems to match EdTel’s logo.
There are a couple of other contextual clues that the photo is of Edmonton. First, the coffee shop of the depot seems to have been called “Mickey’s” (see window in front of street signs). There are references to Mickey’s at this Edmonton forum. Second, the reflection in the large window above the main sign on the depot suggests that that there were large office buildings on the northeast corner of Beatty and Dunsmuir at this time. But even today, there are no large office towers on that corner. The tallest building in that general direction would have been The World (aka The Sun) building; and the reflected building is plainly not The World/Sun.
VPL 81572. VANCOUVER’s former Greyhound Depot. Note: It faced onto Dunsmuir near the Cambie Street corner (not, as I’d thought, on the corner of Beatty and Dunsmuir). 1951. Artray photo.
Edmonton City Archives EA-10-869. The former EDMONTON Greyhound Depot. 1941.
Sheila Claire Buchanan in her role in the office of UBC President, Norman Mackenzie (1955-65). From UBC Chronicle, June 30, 1965.
Sheila Buchanan (1917-2009) was known to the congregation at First Baptist Church as an 18-year veteran missionary to Bolivia; as the Church librarian for a number of years; and as a regular volunteer in the church office.
But what wasn’t widely known was her ‘secular’ career which pre-dated all of these later activities for her church.¹
She was admitted to UBC at age 16 in 1933 where she studied Classics², receiving her B.A. in 1937. While working on her undergraduate degree, she served on the staff of the student newspaper, The Ubyssey.
With her B.A. under her belt, Sheila then took a business course and applied her training at a New Westminster business called Pacific Veneer (which later was part of Canadian Forest Products). She served as the company’s first stenographer.
A few years later, Sheila was back at UBC pursuing a degree in Agriculture with a specialization in soil microbiology. She graduated with her BSA degree in 1946. After finishing this second degree at UBC, she moved to Montreal where she worked for three years with a pharmaceutical company. Following her stint in Montreal, she returned to UBC where she took a post for 6 years in the office of the Dean of Agriculture.
Then, in 1955, Sheila was transferred to the office of the UBC President, Norman MacKenzie. With that job came her posting as the Clerk to the UBC Board of Governors and the Clerk of the UBC Senate.
The Clerk prepared the bulky dockets for meetings, drafted resolutions arising from the agenda, took minutes, saw to follow-up correspondence, and attended sub-committee meetings.
According to a former UBC Senator during Sheila’s time as Clerk: “Senate meetings only made sense to me…when I received my copy of Sheila Buchanan’s minutes.”
In 1965 she ‘retired’ from the President’s office to go to Bolivia as a missionary with the Canadian Baptist Overseas Mission Board (CBOMB). Regarding her mastery of Spanish, it was noted in the UBC Chronicle in 1965: “Her Spanish studies started when she was first living alone and wanted something easy to do while waiting for the kettle to boil.” She served in Bolivia until 1983.
Sheila wasn’t finished with academic pursuits, just yet. She graduated from McMaster University in 1995 with a Master of Divinity degree (M.Div.) at the age of 78.
1990s FBC Women’s Society Executive-Verena Marsh, Barbara Seynour-Grey, Lorna Miller, Sheila Buchanan and Shirley Hunt.
Notes:
¹An invaluable source for this post was an article published in the June, 1965 issue of the UBC Chronicle, written by Elizabeth Blanche Norcross, which profiled the career of Sheila up to that time.
²Sheila was, apparently, a huge fan of the teaching and inspiration offered by the founder and head of the Classics department, Lemuel Robertson.
This is the conclusion of my multi-part post about my purchase of The Book of Roberts, which came with a much-signed pamphlet advertising a lecture by a member of the Roberts family.
The author of the book was William Harris Lloyd Roberts (1884-1966) the eldest son of the so-called ‘Dean of Canadian literature’, Sir Charles G. D. Roberts (1860-1943).¹ The book is a reflection on Lloyd’s growing-up years and includes his impressions of his father and of Sir Charles’ cousin, the so-called ‘Dean of Canadian Poets’, Bliss Carmen (1861-1929) — who is referred to in the book as ‘Uncle Bliss’ and ‘Blissy’.
Mention is made in The Book of Roberts of the novelist/poet brother of Sir Charles, Theodore Goodridge Roberts (1877-1953) — referred to in the book by his family nickname, ‘Thede’. He had “almost as precocious a beginning as his eldest brother [Sir Charles]. Before he was twenty years old, he had published several poems and short stories” (Adams, 77). But he had the mixed destiny to forever be in the literary shadows cast by brother Charles and cousin Bliss. This wasn’t altogether misfortune, though, in my opinion. He may not have been blessed with the same creative genius that Bliss and Charles had, but Thede also didn’t seem to have the same kinds of trouble they had. Charles and Bliss were both lonely men (Bliss never married; Charles made an early and unwise choice of mate whom he ultimately left) and neither had much in the way of ready cash; forget about savings. Thede, on the other hand, to all appearances, had a happy marriage and, while not wealthy, seems not to have been in the poorhouse during his last years. For Thede’s bio note and bibliography, see the inside pages of the pamphlet below.
Mary Eunice Barr was, apparently, the original owner of my copy of The Book of Roberts. It seems to have been a gift to her from A. M. Pound, judging from the inscription by Pound in the book’s flyleaf²:
This sort of quasi-opaque inscription makes me crazy! Why “etc, etc”? Why not be a little more explicit as to the relationship/connection between Mary Eunice and the Roberts clan?
Mary Eunice seems to have been born shortly after the century turned, so that would put her in her late 20s or early 30s by the time Pound presented this to her. She was a dress pattern-maker in Vancouver at the time.
Not only do I not know what connection there was between Mary and the Roberts family, I don’t know how Pound came to be aware of the connection, nor indeed how he came to know Miss Barr. I can speculate a bit on the Roberts-Barr connection, though. In the authorized biography of Sir Charles, written by Elsie Pomeroy, it is noted that
During [Charles’] first year in Toronto a portrait of [him] was painted by J. W. L. Forster, and in the following year by Alan Barr, son of his old friend, the novelist, James Barr, best known in England for his book, The Gods Give My Donkey Wings. James Barr was the brother of Robert Barr — now, in the opinion of Roberts, so undeservedly forgotten both in England and America. (Pomeroy, 303-4)
CVA 125-04 – Portrait of Sir Charles G.D. Roberts. ca1925. Simon Rackleman
As far as I can tell, no other mention is made of any Barr in the biographies of Sir Charles nor any other Roberts reference of which I’m aware. But it could be that Mary Eunice was related in some way to Alan, James, or Robert.
This scrawl makes my struggles to make sense of Mary Eunice Barr seem like a cake walk! I cannot make out what the name is. I’ve tried, without success, to find in the Vancouver Directory for 1932 a plausible name. Of course, my assumption that the person was a resident of Vancouver may be incorrect!
There is one other signature on the pamphlet cover that has faded to the point that my scanner cannot pick up any of it: it is the signature of Margaret Fewster.
Margaret’s surname was familiar to me from my reading of the Roberts biographies. Her dad was medical doctor Ernest P. Fewster who, together with his wife, Emma, was a big mover behind the Vancouver Poetry Society. The Fewsters were also fans of Bliss Carmen and of Sir Charles Roberts.
There is evidence from a U.S. border crossing record for Mary Eunice Barr in 1938 that ‘Margaret Ewster’ (Fewster, I’m assuming) was a friend of Miss Barr.
Conclusion
As I prepared to wrap up this extended post on The Book of Roberts, I wondered how many other people have read the book in recent years. There is no way of knowing that, of course. But surely there must be a way of tracking recent public library borrowings.
Vancouver Public Library has no fewer than three copies at its Central Branch location; two that circulate and one that doesn’t. I was surprised by that, given that it is an obscure little family bio/essay regarding people who aren’t exactly household names, these days! So I emailed VPL to ask if there was any way to track the regularity with which The Book of Roberts had circulated, lately.
A staffer replied:
I can tell you that the History Compact Shelving copy has gone out once since it was added to our Horizon circulation database in 1990 and that the Literature Compact Shelving copy has not circulated since it was added to the database in 1993. There is no way of telling how often either circulated before those times. (Emphasis mine)
Put a little differently, in the past quarter-century, one of the two circulating copies of the book was checked out once.
You may be surprised to learn that I actually find this reassuring. Not that the books have been checked out so infrequently, but that VPL has chosen to retain the copies it has of The Book of Roberts. It is a well-written little book about a family that was significant in the literary history of Canada — and with connections that reached into Vancouver, too.
CVA 125-03 – Group portrait of members of the Vancouver Poetry Society (and guests – I don’t think this portrait is very representative of the local poetry society; left (seated) is Bliss Carmen; left (standing) is Charles G. D. Roberts). Right (standing) is Dr. Fewster. May 1929. George T Wadds.
Notes
¹References on the life of Sir Charles and his circle of family/friends include Sir Charles G. D. Roberts: A Biography. E. M. Pomeroy. Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1943. (This is an authorized biography and Sir Charles was a virtual co-author). For more of a ‘warts-and-all’ treatment of these folks, see Sir Charles God Damn: The Life of Sir Charles G. D. Roberts. John Coldwell Adams. U of T Press, 1986.
²Pound died suddenly just a few months after making the inscription.
In this post and the next, I’ll reveal some of the characters associated with The Book of Roberts and, especially, those whose signatures appear on the little pamphlet that was tucked into my copy.
Alfred M. Pound: An Important Character
I need to begin with Mr. Pound, as I did him an injustice in the first part of this post. I was working from his signature on the pamphlet, and to my eye, initially, it looked like his first two initials were A. W. That got me precisely nowhere.
It was only after becoming increasingly frustrated trying to learn anything about a poet of even minor note who came from St. John and had those initials that it occurred to me that I might have misread one or both of the initials. Sure enough!
From the much-autographed pamphlet inserted in my copy of The Book of Roberts.
When I began searching for A. M. Pound, a St. John poet (once upon a time), things began to click. In fact, it looked like Mr. Pound might just be a key to unravelling other related mysteries.
Alfred Myrick Pound (1869-1932), as it turns out, was, in his early years, on the staff of the St. John Telegraph. Around 1900 he moved from Atlantic Canada to the Pacific, settling in Vancouver where he ultimately partnered with a chap called Champion to form the law firm Champion & Pound. He was later a Vancouver Harbour Commissioner.
Pound, it seems, was never much of a poet (certainly not in terms of quantity of output; I’m not in a position to pass judgement on the quality of his poems). But Pound was a Canadian literature aficionado at a time when such folks weren’t exactly thick on the ground, and he had the resources to assemble an impressive collection of poetry and other literary forms produced by Canadians up until his death. In 1945, his daughters presented UBC Library with his collection.
Notably, Pound specialized in collecting the works of his friends, Sir Charles G. D. Roberts and Sir Charles’ cousin, Bliss Carmen (two of the top stars within the Canadian galaxy of poets). These two will undoubtedly pop up again later!
It has been a couple of days since I updated this blog on the volume picked up at The Paper Hound bookshop, recently. It seemed fitting that I ought to attempt to readThe Book of Roberts.
Readers of the first part of this post will not be surprised, given my guess as to the dollar value of the book, that I was somewhat negatively disposed toward it from the perspective of the book’s perceived usefulness to my writing for VAIW.
But reading isn’t all about usefulness. In fact, I’d say that reading for pleasure doesn’t have much at all to do with utility. (Reading from textbooks, of course, is reading for utility, almost by definition. But I wouldn’t class textbook reading or any school-based “required reading” as being principally reading done for pleasure.)
How would I summarize my personal review of The Book of Roberts? This way: as with many books that have found a temporary home on my bookshelves, it was a surprise! A good surprise.
It was, as I’d guessed in the bookshop, a biography of a family with the surname Roberts who lived in ‘the sticks’ of the Atlantic region of Canada. But at the same time, it was about much more than that. It also served as an aide memoire for me, stimulating recollections of my growing-up years in rural (and semi-rural) Western Canada.
One of the most frustrating aspects of the book, I would say, is also one of its great virtues: the author’s reluctance to fill in the blanks for the reader as to pieces of assumed knowledge. One of these gaps between what the author knows and seems disinclined to spell out to readers pertains to the settings that change from chapter to chapter within this brief book. In an early chapter called “My Father”, the author refers to a place called Kingscroft as the setting where most events transpire. In the subsequent chapter we have apparently moved to a (neighbouring?) location to which he refers as the woods of ‘King’s College’. In yet another chapter called “Uncle Bliss”, we move through both space and time from what seems to be the author’s first home, Kingscroft, to New York City, and from the “present” (by which he seems to mean his youth) to “ten years later” (which I take to be when he was approaching adulthood).
So you can see from the preceding paragraph that if readers are going to get much from the book as a family history, they must either bring some knowledge of the Roberts clan and their environs to the venture of reading the book or else have a pretty good ‘imaginer’ on his or her shoulders!
As I said at the beginning of this mini-review, however, by the time I was nearing the conclusion of the book, I was thankful to Lloyd Roberts for approaching his subject in this way, with somewhat opaque references to settings. In this way, I think, he proved (to me, at least) to be successful in perhaps his more creative objective of transforming The Book of Roberts from a book about the Roberts family into a book that pertains to the reader’s growing-up experiences, too.
Herein lies the magical aspect of this little volume, in my opinion. The author was able to take his personal life experiences as a boy growing up in the Atlantic region of Canada (during its early years as a nation) and leave enough room for the readers (most of whom would be complete strangers to the writer and who most likely had very different growing up experiences) to enter into the author’s joy¹ with the book serving as a stimulant to the reader’s memories of childhood.
That, my friends, is some pretty skillful and truly creative writing!
The book is not consistently great, by any means. Indeed, it seems to trail off rather aimlessly near its end. The absence of an explicit setting at times does not lead one to cheer but to carp at the author for not yielding some vital details for understanding what is going on. And as a bio book of the Roberts’, it fails to deliver most of the facts sought by historians.
But, if I ever were to encounter the now-long-dead Lloyd Roberts, I’d thank him for stimulating, with The Book of Roberts, some forgotten recollections of my growing up years that brought a smile and, in a couple of cases, a blush to my now-adult face.
I will conclude by quoting from the beginning of Roberts’ first chapter, “Toys”. I think that this serves to sum up well what I have taken as the author’s principal purposes: not only to present his family to readers (albeit, somewhat amorphously), but also to present readers with a mirror of sorts with which they may also reflect on their own life experiences in those early, tender years of life:
Toys! Wipe the slate of your mind clean of grown-up facts and figures, shockingly commercial and calculating, and let the delicate traceries of first impressions slowly reappear. What do you see? First, the very first, a cluster of tiny green bells on a handle. The object is so bright that it seems to flood the room until you can see a big bed filled with children. It is evidently Christmas morning. . . You have had an excessive fondness for little painted bells ever since. (The Book of Roberts, p. 13)
Next time, we plan to move back from the realm of reviewing creative non-fiction to our original project of figuring out where The Book of Roberts and its inscribed ephemeron and assorted characters fit into the history of the place I now call home: Vancouver.
Note
¹Joy is something quite different from happiness, in my view. Joy is not dependent on circumstances that are happy.
This post will be a little different. My standard procedure with VAIW has been to become enchanted with a photo of earlier Vancouver, see if there is anything new to say about the image and/or the image-maker, do as much research as I can on it, and then write up my findings here, assuming there is anything to tell.
This time, I’m going to begin with a book that enchanted me. But I’m not going to wait until the end of the process to write up my findings, Instead, I’ll take the slightly riskier approach of presenting my findings as I find them, in the form of a log.
Wednesday, July 5 Whereby I am Enchanted
At the end of a morning of photo-making downtown with my photo pal, I stopped in at The Paper Hound bookshop – something I do at least once a week. I was rooting around the stacks, looking for something I hadn’t before seen. Something that might inspire a post for VAIW, or simply renew my enthusiasm for reading and learning new things.
I wandered down to a section that I’d never looked in before. It was provocatively named “Oddballs, Eccentrics, and Singularities”, if memory serves. Something like that, anyway.
I didn’t see much in the single-shelf section that was of interest to me. I had pawed through most of the volumes and was about ready to move on to another section. But before I did, I pulled out a pale brown volume. From the spine, I could see that the book was called The Book of Roberts. Author: Roberts. Nothing more, except for a little ornament indicating the publisher was Ryerson Press.
“Hmm,” I said to myself, “Probably just a variation on Roberts’ Rules of Order that somebody’s misfiled.”
But I opened it up, anyway, to be sure. The title page read as follows:
THE BOOK of ROBERTS
Comprising certain small
incidents as recalled by
one of them and here set
down for the first time
With a foreword by
Basil King, an intimate of
their haunts
BY LLOYD ROBERTS
TORONTO
THE RYERSON PRESS
Okay. Plainly not Roberts’ Rules. It looked to me like a family’s biography as told by a member of that clan. According to the overleaf page, it was published in 1923.
Hmph.
So far, I wasn’t remotely interested. A book about a family called Roberts and that lived, in all likelihood, in Toronto or somewhere east of there was unlikely to have much grist for Vancouver As It Was.
I flipped through the slender volume (only 147 numbered pages; it felt to me like someone had only recently cut the pages, and as though it had never been read from cover to cover. Not a good sign!
Then my page flipping yielded something else. There was a little pamphlet that had been inserted in the book at some time. I will reproduce the pamphlet’s cover here in situ, as i found it within the pages of The Book of Roberts.
Pamphlet as and where I found it within The Book of Roberts.
A glance at the pamphlet told me that it had been designed for “lecture recitals” in Toronto that had been presented by Theodore Goodridge Roberts (presumably one of the Roberts clan described in the book). The front of the pamphlet was a bit of mess. There was TGR’s signature, apparently, another signature of a “St. John poet” called “A. W. Pound”, and yet another of someone called “M. Eunice Barr”. The reference to The Vancouver Art Gallery (in its earlier location in the 1100 block of Georgia Street) scrawled on the pamphlet’s cover, had me doubly intrigued. It looked to me as though T. G. Roberts had spoken at Vancouver in addition to Toronto (and perhaps in other locales), but that the Vancouver sponsor did not have enough cash to justify printing a location-specific pamphlet.
Yes, I was intrigued. Not ready to buy the book, yet, but intrigued.
I decided to play a silly game which I’ve sometimes played in bookstores in the past. I would guess the figure that the seller wanted for the book, and if I was right, I’d buy it. If not, I’d leave it on the shelf for some other sucker.
I decided that the book was worth very little. I chose a figure of $9. I flipped to the front of the book where I knew the price would appear in pencil. $30?! What the . . . ? My heart sank.
I wanted the book now, probably more than I would have wanted it if it had been marked at $9! This is why I referred to my little price game as ‘silly’; I knew that I was perfectly capable of ignoring the rules of the game if I so wished. And I was close to so wishing in this case! Not quite, yet, though.
I walked up to Rod, one of the proprietors of the Hound.
“Rod,” I said, “You need to persuade me that this tiny volume is actually worth $30.”
He reached for The Book of Roberts and began flipping through it, much as I had done moments before. He noticed the pamphlet, as I had.
“I’ve no idea” said he. (This wasn’t going quite as I’d hoped.) “Let me have a look in our computer record and I’ll see if there are any notes there by me or perhaps by Kim.” (Kim is Rod’s business partner). A few seconds and multiple keystrokes passed and he said “I just see an obscure note about autographs inscribed on the pamphlet that’s inside the book.”
Hmm. I’d been hoping that there would be something that Rod could tell me that would make more rational my decision to buy the book (which by then, I now realize, I’d already made). But he wasn’t cooperating.
Then Rod added another piece of info: “I see here that the book has been on our shelves almost since we opened.”
“Okay,” I said, withdrawing the cash from my wallet, “It’s time it had a new home.”
The Book of Roberts lies on my desk, now, its secrets still safely tucked up within. But, I hope, not for too much longer!
BC Hotel Association Convention. Photographer Unknown. Author’s Collection.
I bought the snapshot shown above at a flea market a few months ago. It isn’t a great photo; it was taken at a rakish angle that is suggestive that the photographer had been sampling a bit too liberally from the beverages available at this gathering. But it appeals to me as a period photo. It seems candidly to stop the action for a second in a place and among a group in whom I was interested.
So who were these folks?
Judging from the document which was helpfully being leafed through by the seated chap on the right side of the image, it is a group of BC hoteliers at the 25th annual convention of their provincial organization, the BC Hotel Association (BCHA). Judging from the clothing worn, a couple of people who are better judges of such things than I guessed that this photo was probably made in the late 1940s or early ’50s. I have since confirmed that these dating approximations were spot-on. In fact, the image seems to have been taken in 1949.
How can I be so sure of the year of this photo?
With my magnifying glass, I was able to read from the cover of the BCHA periodical, BC Hotelman, that the issue was the one published for the ’25th Annual Convention’. I then made a trip to the Central branch of Vancouver Public Library to see if I could find this issue of BC Hotelman. Nope; it’s rarely that easy! The earliest issue in the collection was from 1968. I had a feeling from the guesses of my friends that the photo was from an earlier decade than the ’60s. So I then leafed through two or three issues of the Hotelman at VPL to see if I could find mention made of the BCHA convention planned for the current year — mention, preferably, that included reference to how many years the BCHA bad been meeting annually for their conventions. I found such a reference pretty quickly in the 1968 volume: it was an advertisement for the upcoming 44th annual meeting. It then became a simple math problem (even for me) to conclude that the 25th annual meeting was circa 1949.
As to specifically who the gents and ladies are in the image, I have no clue. Most of the women in this photo, however, seem (to my eye) to have been present principally as the ‘wives of’ the BC hotelmen at the convention. This was 1949, after all. We were still a couple of decades short of women coming into their own as major players in businesses of this sort in significant numbers. Needless to say, the BCHA’s current serial is no longer called BC Hotelman!
Where were they having their meeting that year?
Well, plainly it was in a hotel somewhere in BC. But which location? The interior looked familiar to me. My guess was that it was the current Hotel Vancouver (1939-present). This is really the only local hotel with which I have any interior knowledge, but until yesterday I had nothing with which to substantiate that guess. Once again, I bow to that most useful of devices, my magnifying glass! On the tumblers scattered about on the coffee table in the foreground is printed, very helpfully, “Hotel Vancouver”!
Temporary Aerial Tramway built at UBC’s Point Grey campus to aid transport of granite stones to such building sites as the Main Library. UBC 1.1/1805. 1923. Stuart Thomson.
When I first saw this image, my initial thought was “Gee, did they build a ‘zip line’ at the Point Grey campus as early as 1923?”. Then common sense kicked in.
There was precious little development at Point Grey, then. The only building that was even partially constructed was the Science building. It seems doubtful that a ‘zip line’ would have been a priority, assuming that such a thing was technologically feasible at the time.
So what was the aerial tramway for? A web page regarding the building of Main Library explains:
“Designed by the architectural firm of Sharp and Thompson the Library was one of the three original permanent buildings on the Point Grey campus. The granite facing stones for the Library were quarried on Nelson Island in Pender Harbour and carried by barge to the foot of the Point Grey cliffs. A temporary aerial tramway and light railway system carried then carried them to the building site.”
The following images make this a bit clearer:
The foot of the Point Grey cliffs where granite from Nelson Island was deposited. It was then hoisted onto ‘cars’ that were attached to the aerial tramway up to the flat lands that constitute the UBC campus above. UBC 1.1./1818. 1923. Stuart Thomson.
At the top of the Point Grey cliffs was the beginning of the temporary rail system. UBC 1.1/1807. 1923. Stuart Thomson.
The cars full of granite stones were loaded onto waiting trains which carried them to the building sites. UBC 1.1/1813. 1923. Stuart Thomson.
But where was this tramway located? I’m not absolutely certain, but it looks to me as though the tramway descended from Marine Drive down the cliff face where today there are the steps down to clothing-optional Wreck Beach.
What caused me to reach this conclusion? The panorama image below (and others that are similar).
The railway track appears to have been just to the right of the original power plant, identifiable from its distinctive tower (the original plant was demolished in 2016). UBC 1.1/1800. 1925. Stuart Thomson.
I suspect that where the track was located (above) is where Agricultural Road is today and which, if one follows it towards Marine Drive (through the trees shown in the panorama), leads one to the vicinity of Wreck Beach. (This conclusion has been confirmed by an image supplied by UBC Library; see comments below).
CVA 136-460. Ernst Friedlander, Vancouver Cellist. ca1964. Deni Eagland, Pacific Press. (Cropped by author)
Any piano student who has ‘short finger syndrome’ can spot a fellow-sufferer in an instant. So one look at the photo above was all it took for me to realize that this chap with stubby fingers could not have earned his daily bread (or at least little more than that) by being a “pianist” (as is asserted as of this date by the City of Vancouver Archives)!
Indeed, the image above is a portrait of Ernst Friedlander (1906-66), a well-known cellist in his day, who settled in Greater Vancouver in 1958 along with his professional pianist wife, Marie Friedlander (née Werbner). He lived here with her until 1966 when he died of heart failure, a relatively young man at 60.
Ernst was an Austrian Jew who studied his art in Vienna and later was appointed first chair of the Vienna Concert Orchestra and was a member of the Popa-Grama String Quartet. Ernst and Marie fled the Nazi regime by emigrating to the U.S. in 1937. They moved around a good deal during their time in America. He seems to have been principal cellist with a symphony orchestra, and/or cellist with a smaller group, and/or a lecturer at a university (or all of these, as was the case in Vancouver) in the following:¹
1937-38 – Pittsburgh
1939-42 – Indianapolis
1943-55 – University of Wisconsin; Pro Arte (String) Quartet (1940-47)
1952-54 – University of Wyoming
1955 – Chicago
1956-58 – University of Oklahoma
1958-66 – Vancouver Symphony Orchestra; Vancouver Chamber Orchestra; Vancouver String Quartet (1960-66); lecturer at UBC.
Ernst also wrote “more than 50” compositions, mainly for cello, the most well-known being his Cello Concerto (1950) and Minnelied (1964).²
The Friedlanders felt more at home in Vancouver than they had in America (they became Canadian citizens in 1963). Said Marie: “Canada was so much more like the Old World [than the United States] and we took to it.”³ Marie died in Kelowna in 1995.
CVA Van Sc P38.4. Looking south toward Pender Street from Hastings Street and Seymour Street. 1892. Charles S. Bailey.
This view of Vancouver as it appeared to early Vancouver photographer, Charles S. Bailey just six years after incorporation as a city has appealed to me since I first clapped eyes on it a couple of years ago.
Vancouver may have been a city for half a decade, technically, but by today’s standards, it was more town-like. White guys hadn’t put their hands to ‘developing’ the land much south of False Creek and that is pretty evident here (and better, here). You can see the still-standing, forest that constituted what later would be known as the Mount Pleasant and Fairview neighbourhoods. The haze that seems to envelop this scene probably was due mainly to the multiple saw mills in the area. Hastings Mill, for example, was just northeast of where the photographer was standing.
It is also remarkable how many houses of worship are visible in this image (and how little theological variety was represented thereby). I count five Christian churches within about as many blocks of each other: four protestant and one Catholic. Holy Rosary appears to be different from how it appears today for a good reason: it was a different building. Construction of the current structure would begin a few years after this photo was taken – in 1899. The church became a cathedral in 1916.
This photo was probably made from the rooftop of the Empire Building (NW corner of Hastings at Seymour).
“Canadian Prime Minister arrives at the White House. Prime Minister Richard B. Bennett of Canada at the White House today to take part in the complicated foreign exchange problem.” In the photograph, L TO R: Col. James Ulio, Military Aide; Mrs. Mildred Herridge; William D. Herridge, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary for Canada in the U.S.A.; Prime Minister R. B. Bennett; President F. D. Roosevelt; and Capt. Walter Vernou, White House Naval Aide. 1933. Harris & Ewing photo.
William Duncan Herridge (1886-1961) neither lived in Vancouver nor worked here. In fact, he admits in the speech he delivered here on May 3, 1939 that it had “not been my good fortune often to visit British Columbia.”¹ But, for some reason, he chose Vancouver as one of the principal locations for the launch of his short-lived party – initially a committee – the ‘New Democracy’.
Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary
This mouthful of a title (which has more than a hint of W. S. Gilbert about it) was conferred upon William Herridge in 1931 by Prime Minister R. B. Bennett (1870-1947). He would be Bennett’s envoy to Washington, D.C. (essentially the Canadian Ambassador) until 1935. He was also Bennett’s brother-in-law, marrying R. B.’s sister, Mildred, also in 1931.
To say that Herridge had a close advisory relationship with Prime Minister Bennett (1930-35) would be an understatement.² Indeed, when it came to the attempted import of some sort of mini-New-Deal from the U.S. to Canada, it seems Herridge had few advisory peers.
Herridge was fascinated by the mystique of the American New Deal. He told Bennett that Roosevelt was a leader who ‘in some way not wholly revealed, will lead them out of the wilderness of depression’. . . . Herridge noted: ‘The New Deal is a sort of Pandora’s Box, from which, at suitable intervals, the President has pulled the N.R.A. [National Recovery Administration] and the A.A.A. [Agricultural Adjustment Act] and a lot of other mysterious things. Most of the people never understood the N.R.A. or the A.A.A. any more than they understand the signs of the Zodiac.’ The people did not have to understand the New Deal. . . . ‘Pandora’s Box has charmed the people into a new state of mind.’ If only they could do it in Canada, they could provide the same, ‘the hope and promise of a new heaven and a new earth’. Herridge realized that the moral was to ‘promise all things – a new system, regulation, control, and so forth – and ask for a mandate to bring them about. But under no circumstances say how you propose to achieve the new order of society, don’t be specific or definite. Stick to generalities.’ (Hoogenraad, 65-66. Emphasis mine.)
Herridge had a two-phase plan for a Canadian New Deal under Bennett: Phase I would consist of a series of radio broadcasts to be delivered by Bennett in which the New Deal would be outlined. Phase II was based on the assumption that the Liberal Party under MacKenzie King would denounce the New Deal in the context of the debate on the Throne Speech which would follow the radio broadcasts and that King would defend laissez-faire liberalism. Bennett would respond to that by dissolving Parliament and going to the people, asking that they choose between the New Deal Conservatives and the status quo Liberals.
Bennett’s five radio speeches, delivered in January 1935, came off all right. He introduced the ideas of a uniform minimum wage, a maximum work week, unemployment insurance, and health insurance. The final line of his last speech promised to “reclaim this land from trouble and sorrow, and bring back happiness and security.”
The plan as conceived by Herridge did not come off, however. For one thing, there was a falling out between Bennett and Herridge pertaining to the drafting of the Speech from the Throne. According to one witness, Herridge defended one of his ideas that he wanted included in the speech so vociferously, that he even questioned Bennett’s authority to draft his own speech. Bennett sent Herridge out of his office and they didn’t have any contact for six months after that.
The New Deal plan did not succeed for another reason: King did not come to the defence of laissez-faire liberalism as Herridge had forecast. Instead, the Liberal leader took Bennett and Herridge by surprise and demanded that Bennett’s government introduce their reforms immediately.
Herridge urged Bennett to drop the writ and seek a New Deal mandate from the people soon after Throne Speech. But Bennett ignored Herridge. He dawdled (probably partly because, by this time, he was having heart problems). The election did not happen until September, 1935. By that time, any influence the Bennett broadcasts had had in the minds of Canadians had faded.
New Democracy Speech, Vancouver, May 1939
In 1935, Minister William D. Herridge became just plain Bill Herridge. With the defeat of Bennett’s government in the 1935 federal election, he resigned his Ambassadorship to Washington and picked up his law practice. His wife, Mildred, died in May 1938, after a lengthy illness. A year later, Herridge was in Vancouver urging the local New Democracy to field candidates there and across the country in the forthcoming election (which would be in 1940).
His speech was full of code words. One of the most often repeated of these which had a positive connotation was “security”; another was “prosperity” and that, in turn, was contrasted with “profits” (negative). “Production for security” is good; it is how the economy ought to run in the “age of plenty” versus the old economy, aka “the age of profits”. According to Herridge, the “old parties”, by which he meant the Liberals and Conservatives, should be kicked out of Parliament because they represent “reaction”. “Reform” is the contrasting code word to describe, presumably, those who are ‘new democracy’ advocates.
“Totalitarianism” and “fascism” are two negative code words he sprinkled liberally in his speech:
The totalitarian principle works well only when the people act like robots. Be warned. If you want to keep democracy, you must keep it close to the people. He who favours the impairment of provincial rights [one of the ‘bulwarks’ of our democracy], favours implicitly, the totalitarian plan, which is the machinery of fascism. And fascism will strip the people of every right; even the right to live.
During most of the speech, Herridge was careful to speak in the third person singular. But in the section pertaining to “relief” for those who are unemployed, he shifted to the first person singular:
At the moment, among the federal, provincial, and municipal authorities, there is a dangerous shifting of responsibility upon the the question of relief. The people are the victims of it. If I were the head of the federal government, I would assume full responsibility. I would take over relief, unconditionally, one hundred per cent. And it would no longer be called relief. It would be called the right to live . . . . Therefore, I would see that every law-abiding Canadian had the food and housing necessary for health. I would not let our people starve when we have the means to care for them. . . . I would put the whole power of the state between our people and their present suffering. For if the Dominion of Canada cannot give its people health and happiness, of what use is the Dominion of Canada?
I found myself responding to this paragraph with mixed feelings. On the one hand, I was struck by how in this paragraph, Herridge seems to be unaware of how government functions in Canada; both that we are a parliamentary democracy and that we are a federal system in which responsibilities for different areas of governance are allotted constitutionally to the federal government and provincial governments.
On the other hand, I found this paragraph to be among the best in the speech. It was full of passion and there were blessedly few code words.
Failure of Herridge’s New Democracy
In the 1940 general election, New Democracy fielded only 17 candidates, and of those, just three were elected (and all of those were incumbents who were first elected under Social Credit’s banner in 1935). Herridge ran for the seat in Kindersley, Saskatchewan, which he lost. In British Columbia, New Democracy won no seats and earned just 1/10th of 1% of the popular vote in the province.
There are at least a couple of factors that come to mind when considering explanations for the failure of New Democracy. First, the timing was plainly wrong. The Vancouver speech was presented on May 4, 1939, just 4 months from when Canada would declare war with Germany. The election itself was a wartime one – never an opportune time for new parties to make an impact.
Another reason for the failure of New Democracy, it seems to me, is that – if his Vancouver speech is indicative of the way he spoke publicly elsewhere of the party and its objectives – it wasn’t at all clear what those party goals were. It seemed in his speech as though he’d swallowed whole the advice he gave R. B. Bennett when he was advising him on how to sell the Canadian New Deal: “Under no circumstances say how you propose to achieve the new order of society, don’t be specific or definite. Stick to generalities.”
This cynical view seemed to be poor counsel for both Bennett’s New Deal and for Herridge’s New Democracy.
¹From “Address to be delivered under the auspices of the New Democracy Committee, at Vancouver, Wednesday May , 1939, at 8 p.m.” I recently purchased a copy of this speech. It was marked “Confidential. Released for publication in newspapers not appearing on streets before Thursday morning, May 4, 1939.” It wasn’t attributed to Herridge, but it is plain from at least one newspaper account on May 4th (in the Winnipeg Tribune), that it this was Herridge’s Vancouver speech.
The text of the speech has been scanned as a pdf file and is attached just above these notes.
Cover, Vancouver: A Short History, 1936. Illustrator: Yoshio Hinatsu.
Title page, Vancouver: A Short History, 1936.
I purchased the little pamphlet history shown above at a recent paper ephemera fair. I was taken with the art deco illustrations on the cover and on interior pages and wondered who was Yoshio Hinatsu, the illustrator, and what became of him. (I wasn’t the first local historian to so wonder; Illustrated Vancouver had raised similar questions in 2010).
When the pamphlet was produced in 1936 – Vancouver’s Golden Jubilee year – Yoshio apparently was a student at Templeton Jr. High School and was a member of the school’s Archivists’ Club. The portrait of Club members which appears below is from the City of Vancouver Archives collection.
CVA 371-801 – Ken Waites (teacher, seated) and Templeton High School’s “Archivists Club”, ca 1936.
The ‘Not-So-Great Leap’
This portrait stumped me for quite awhile. Because it was made around the same time as the history was published and because there were six students pictured (the same number as the authors and illustrator of the history), I leapt to the conclusion that the photo was of Hinatsu and the history authors. That ‘leap’ got me into all kinds of trouble. For starters, although there were six people in the portrait, I had a hard time identifying anyone who had Japanese features. And the list of authors/illustrator shown on the history’s title page indicates there were three girl authors, two boy authors, and illustrator Yoshio. I had initially thought of Yoshio as being male. His art deco illustrations looked to me like something produced by a guy. But my ‘leap’ led me to question Yoshio’s gender. I inquired of Asian friends whether Yoshio was typically a name given to girls or boys. Answer: Boys. I then tried to get the facts to fit my biases by trying on yet another hypothesis: what if Yoshio’s name was misprinted (and ‘Yoshio’ was actually, say, “Yoshiko’ – a girl’s name).
I was in need of more facts and fewer guesses!
Facts from Nikkei Centre
Additional facts ultimately arrived in my inbox. The big break came from an archivist with the Nikkei National Museum and Cultural Centre, to whom I’d sent a query early on in my research into Yoshio Hinatsu.
The Nikkei Centre was able to set me straight on a number of things¹:
Yoshio was a guy. No question. This was confirmed by the archivist speaking to a couple of Yoshio’s Templeton classmates.
His parents were Kahei (father) and Mestuko (mother) Hinatsu. Kahei (and presumably, his wife) immigrated to Canada in 1907. Some sources thought that Kahei was an importer/exporter. They apparently lived in Japantown in the 1936-41 period (at 1876 Triumph Street).
Yoshio and his parents (and his sisters: Kimiye and Fumiye) returned together to Japan on November 15, 1941. This was just a couple weeks before the Pearl Harbor attack in December 1941 which marked the beginning of the Japanese Internment in Canada.
It was unknown by any of Yoshio’s classmates if he and/or his parents returned to Canada after WWII. (But it seems to me doubtful).
It isn’t known what Yoshio did for a living when he was in Japan. He was a bank clerk in Vancouver before he left Canada with his family in 1941.
Although there were comments from Yoshio’s classmates about there being at least one group photo in which Yoshio appeared, I have been in contact with the Vancouver School Board’s heritage division and they in turn contacted Templeton School and no images have turned up that include Yoshio.
The Illustrations
The artwork created by Yoshio for A Short History seems to be a combination of realism and fantasy. There are elements of different Vancouver periods (ocean liners, tall ships, automobiles, railways); there appears to be an early sketch of Hastings Mill. And there are far more art deco buildings in the Vancouver of Yoshio’s imagination than ever graced the streets of real Vancouver (even in the most deco-ish 1930s). Finally, the wrestling t-rex dinosaurs in the leftmost cloud formation is an oddity.
Center-fold illustration inside Vancouver: A Short History, 1936. Illustrator: Yoshio Hinatsu. Note: Fighting T-Rexs in the leftmost cloud formation. Odd.
Notes
¹Many thanks to Linda Kawamoto Reid, Research Archivist at Nikkei National Museum and Cultural Centre for tracking down this information.
Timms would have been standing with his back to the second C.P.R. station (1898-1914; Edward Maxwell, architect) at Granville and Cordova. His camera was pointing up Granville from the intersection with West Hastings. The shops visible on the right side are on the west side of Granville (400 block) between Hastings and Pender. On the right, nearest the camera (at the SW corner of Hastings and Granville) is the McDowell-Burns Drug Co. Not far from the druggist is a sign identifying the Pacific Coast Steamship office (see pamphlet below). The circular sign just beyond the Pacific Coast sign seems to be advertising passage specifically via the steamship Iroquois Seattle (shown in dry dock in the postcard below). Near the corner of Pender and Granville is McIntyre’s Cafe (439 Granville), James A. McIntyre (1893-1925), proprietor, and the Fairfield Building (445 Granville; 1898-ca1949; William Blackmore, architect). Just across Pender at the time (on the SW corner of Pender and Granville) was where Vancouver’s main Post Office (1892-1926; Fuller/Wickenden, architects) was located before it was moved to a new structure at the NW corner of Hastings and Granville in 1910 (today, part of Sinclair Centre).
“Pacific Coast Steamship Company’s Direct Route from Puget Sound Ports, Victoria, and Vancouver to Skaguay Alaska” – 1902-06 pamphlet.
Iroquois Seattle Steamer in Moran Dry Dock, Seattle. n.d.
On the left side of the image (behind where the closest trolley is located) is the site where the Rogers Building would be built a few years later (470 Granville; 1912; Gould and Champney, architects). At the time Timms took this photo, however, the lot at the NE corner of Pender and Granville was occupied by C. D. Rand Real Estate, O. B. Allan Jewellers, and Purdy’s Chocolates. Outside of the crop on the left is what then was the newly-finished Canadian Bank of Commerce (1908; Darling and Pearson, architects) – what today is the home of Birk’s.
CVA Van Sc P114 – [The Woodward’s Department store beacon] ca 1938. (The “W” marks where the flagship outlet of Woodward’s Dept. Stores was located at northwest corner of Hastings at Abbott. Originally, as shown here, the W was mounted beneath a tower with a beacon. During WWII, however, this was considered to be a potential target and so the beacon was extinguished for the duration of the war. After the war was over, the W was mounted atop a replica of a substantially-shorter-than-actual Eiffel Tower. More recently, the original W was moved to ground-level as part of the Woodward’s Condominium redevelopment project. A shiny new W sits atop the redeveloped Woodward’s condos).
According to a recent lecture titled “A Few Myths About Vancouver: The Real Stories”, by local historian, John Atkin, Woodward’s own brand of peanut butter was at one time produced beneath the beacon shown in the first image. This Woodward’s Peanut butter label (from the period 1973-1986) is at the Museum of Vancouver’s online site. (Thanks to J. Friesen for passing along the peanut butter information from Atkin’s lecture).
This was originally posted July 2015. Updated on April 28, 2017.
CVA Str P278 – An H.A. Edgett Company Limited grocery delivery wagon on Hamilton Street. 1908. Edgett Grocers was an early Vancouver grocer that carried Orange Meat.
Vancouver Daily World, 5 April 1904.
I came upon this advertisement when looking for something else in a 1904 edition of the Vancouver Daily World. The very peculiar product name compelled me to drop what I was looking for and read the rest of the ad.
The ad copy seems to have been produced by H. A. Edgett & Co., a notable Vancouver grocer; the product was evidently being introduced to the local marketplace at around this time.
From the ad we learn the following:
– No cooking was required prior to consuming Orange Meat;
– It was easily digested;
– It was produced in Canada;
– Cost was 15 cents/package.
But what was this foodstuff with the off-putting name brand (at least to 21st-century eyes)¹?
The ad following, printed by the manufacturer (Frontenac Cereal Co. of Kingston, Ontario) in 1906, was better in terms of its descriptive strength: it was at least clear that the mysterious ‘meat’ was in fact a breakfast cereal. According to the marketing folks at Frontenac, Orange Meat’s combination of ‘crisp flakes’ + ‘spicy malt’ + sugar = ‘fascinating tastiness’. Here, the company made the classical rhetorical appeal to ‘yumminess’! (I’m kidding, they were actually appealing to pathos – of which ‘yumminess’ is merely a subset!)
But they undid their positive work by making the claim “Orange Meat simply grows on you.” Hmmmm . . . I’m not sure that’s quite the word image that the marketers wanted to conjure in the minds of prospective buyers.
Manitoba Morning Free Press. 18 August 1906.
In the next national ad released in the autumn of 1906, they shifted the appeal to the cleanliness of their manufacturing process (the classical appeal to logos).
Well, sort of. The headline read “Absolute Cleanliness Free.” To me, that sounds like their process was free of cleanliness. Probably not the impression they were going for.
Ottawa Journal. 20 October 1906.
Finally, the appeal was shifted sightly again (it remained an appeal to logos) by advertising the high food value delivered by Orange Meat. (Call in the scientists!) A Prof. John Waddell of Queen’s University was enlisted to do a series of tests. The outcome? “Orange Meat contains over 45% of wheat sugars. These build up muscles and feed nerves and make people strong and cheerful.” (Winnipeg Tribune,Feb 2/07)
Manitoba Morning Free Press, 26 December 1906.
The Frontenac Cereal Company seems ultimately to have said ‘uncle’ ca1911 and pulled the plug on the product with the dreadful name which, unhappily for Frontenac, was so damaged at birth that all of their marketers couldn’t put Orange Meat together again!
Notes
¹Other breakfast cereal brands of the early 1900s included such winners as: “Hello-Billo’, “Korn Kure’, ‘Tryabita’, “Tryachewa’, Oatsina, and the ever-popular, ‘Malt-Ho’!
Membership transfers (or “letters of dismissal/admission”) were an important aspect of early 20th century protestant churches. This post will explore some of the features of membership transfers, using First Baptist Church, Vancouver as a case study. I will present scans of actual membership transfer correspondence between First Baptist and other churches. The correspondence on which I’ll comment in this post, for the most part, occurred when FBC was in the building shown above.¹
Incorporation
One of the first tasks of a group of believers who wished to form a church was an exchange of letters of dismissal (from their previous church home) and admission (to their new home); this action would be repeated again and again in church meetings as a congregation moved forward.
The following is an excerpt from the earliest document of First Baptist Church: the minutes of the meeting held to incorporate the church (March 16, 1887):
Address by Chairman Rev. R. Lennie on object of formation of churches and qualifications essential for church membership and relationship members should bear each to the other.
Singing.
Rev. J. W. Daniels then read letters of dismissal and commendation for the purpose of forming church at Vancouver on behalf of the following members, viz.,
Bro[ther] E. J. Peck, Bethesda, B. C. [Baptist Church], La Conner WT [Washington Territory]
Sis[ter] Mary Peck, Bethesda B.C. [Baptist Church], La Conner, WT
Sis J. C. Alcock, Olivet [Baptist Church], New Westminster, BC
Sis Isabella McLean, Calvery [Baptist Church], Victoria, BC
Sis Seraph Crandall, Salisbury, New Brunswick
Sis Nellie Evans, Emerson [Baptist Church], Emerson, Manitoba
Bro Henry A. Morgan, Calvary [Baptist Church], Victoria, BC
Bro J. H. Carlisle, 1st [Baptist Church], Seattle, WT
Sis Sarah E. Hamilton, Calvary [Baptist Church], Victoria, BC
Bro Abram Broulette, Emerson [Baptist Church], Emerson, Manitoba
After reading of letters those present whose letters were read came forward and declared it their desire and intention to unite and be organized into a Baptist Church.
If some of the language above reminds you of phrases you have heard in a marriage service, I’m not surprised. Membership and especially the transference of it to/from other congregations was taken very seriously in First Baptist Church Vancouver in its earliest days.
When Letters of Transfer Were Truly Letters
(A) An example of a “Letter” Style of Membership Transfer. From “Correspondence File 1908”, Archives, First Baptist Church, Vancouver, BC.
The letter above (A), sent regarding Mr. and Mrs. Waine from the Church Clerk at “Central Fairview Baptist Church” in Vancouver to First Baptist is very typical of the earliest of such correspondence. In what ways?
First, it’s a letter, rather than a standardized form (for an example of a form, see (B)). This was typical of smaller, newer, less institutional congregations.
It is also a typical piece of transfer correspondence in that it was from one church clerk (that is what the “CC” abbreviation following J. S. Brookes’ name stands for) to another (at FBC, the clerk was Mr. Thompson). For a rarer example of pastor-to-pastor communication, see (C) below.
Third, Fairview’s clerk makes makes it plain that he isn’t acting on his own authority in making this request: “I am requested to write for letters of dismissal…” The request was made to him indirectly from the Waines and more directly from his congregation.
(B) An example of a “Form” Style of Membership Transfer. From “Correspondence 1902”, Archives, First Baptist Church, Vancouver, BC. Note: This form alludes to ‘this blank’ which is no longer attached to the rest of the form. It would have been completed by Vancouver FBC’s Clerk and sent to San Jose FBC confirming that Mrs. Hickman had formally ‘united’ with the Vancouver church. See (D) for an example of a still-attached blank.
(C) An example of a Pastor-to-Pastor membership transfer letter (versus the far more typical Clerk-to-Clerk style). It is plain from the context of this letter that the Pastor at Temple Baptist in L.A. was a friend or acquaintance of H. Francis Perry at FBC.
Step-By-Step Guide
This was probably roughly the order in which things happened (still relying principally on the case of the Waines, to illustrate):
Mr. and Mrs. Waine had been living somewhere in or near downtown Vancouver and had been members at FBC. They then moved to Fairview, for some reason or other. There wasn’t much choice among Baptist churches in Fairview at that time; and for most Baptists in this period, it would have been quite exceptional for them to consider moving to a non-Baptist church. So choosing a new body of believers with which to unite in their the new neighbourhood would not have been a big decision for the Waines.
They notified the Fairview church, probably through its pastor, that they wanted to make Fairview Baptist their church home. The pastor would pass their names along to Fairview’s Clerk, Mr. Brookes.
This is the stage at which the Brookes/Thompson correspondence was initiated by Mr Brookes.
Upon receiving the request from Fairview, Thompson would have put Mr. and Mrs. Waines on his ‘little list’ of those who had requested letters.
Thompson’s actions at the next FBC congregational meeting (which in 1908 would have happened weekly) would have been recorded in FBC’s minutes in language similar to this: ‘Bro. Thompson presented request from Mr. and Mrs. J. T. Waine to join Central Fairview Baptist Church.’ And, assuming that FBC’s congregants approved: ‘On motion, granted.’
Thompson would send Fairview a ‘letter of dismissal’ from FBC membership. There are no surviving copies of FBC’s dismissal letters, but judging from letters of dismissal sent to First, the letter may have included a proviso that if FBC didn’t receive confirmation that the Waines had ‘united with’ Fairview in membership within a stated period, the dismissal would be assumed null/void.
Upon receipt of FBC’s letter, it would be Fairview’s turn to have a meeting. At the Fairview congregational meeting, the names of Mr. and Mrs. Waine would be raised as desiring to join Fairview. The language used in Fairview’s minute book was probably something like this: “Bro. and Sis. J. T. Waine were received by letter.”²
It was then incumbent upon Fairview to communicate to FBC that the Waines had become members at Fairview – this is the ‘letter of admission’ side of the equation. (A large congregation would likely eventually adopt a form rather than a letter as a way of communicating this membership transfer info between churches. At this stage, if FBC had adopted a form system – and I do not know when/if they did so, though it seems likely – Fairview would have returned the blank at the bottom of the form to FBC confirming that the membership transfer had been finalized. See (D) below for an example of a ‘blank’ attached to another church’s ‘letter of dismission’ form.
Finally, FBC, upon receiving Fairview’s final correspondence regarding the Waines, would make a note in FBC’s membership roll that the Waines had withdrawn their membership and were worshipping at Fairview.
(D) An example of a “Form with Blank Attached” Style of Membership Transfer. From “Correspondence File 1907”, Archives, First Baptist Church, Vancouver, BC.
No Respecter of Persons (Nor of Congregational Politics)
The membership transfer system was no respecter of persons. All were treated equally, at least on paper. Members wanting to unite with FBC Vancouver who had come from a lonely rural Alberta church followed the same steps as did an incoming pastor and his wife whose previous pastorate had been at Cambridge, Mass. See (E) below.
(E) Membership transfer form completed by the Clerk (probably a Clerk Pro Tem since the name of the clerk was scratched out on this form) at FBC, Cambridge, Mass. for Mrs. J.L. Campbell (wife of the incoming pastor at FBC, Vancouver). From “Correspondence File 1915”, Archives, First Baptist Church, Vancouver, BC.
(F) I’m including this one because it makes me smile. It was sent to FBC Vancouver, I’m guessing, by error. It is a membership transfer for a former FBC,Vancouver pastor, J Willard Litch whose pastorate was shifting from Broadway Baptist Church (in Vancouver) to FBC, Calgary. This is a fine example of the sort of confusion that can ensue when there is a First Baptist Church in most major centres in North America! From “Correspondence File 1910”, Archives, First Baptist Church, Vancouver, BC.
Likewise the membership transfer system operated in the same fashion no matter which congregation was involved – even if the congregation was a splinter sub-group of First Baptist Church: West End Baptist Church (see (G)).³
(G) An unusual example of membership transfer from West End Baptist Church, Vancouver. WEBC was a splinter of FBC for a very brief period (ca1904-06). Note that no ‘receiving church’ is stipulated by WEBC’s clerk. It isn’t clear whether that was because the clerk was unsure which Baptist church Ida Hooper would end up going to with her letter, or if it was a case of ‘we’re not speaking’ between WEBC and FBC. From “Correspondence File 1905”, Archives, First Baptist Church, Vancouver, BC.
Clues for Researchers
Clues to church history abound in membership transfer correspondence. If you should happen across them when assembling documents for a church archive (or under other circumstances), I’d urge you not to pitch them out. They can tell you a great deal about both churches involved in a transfer: hints as to congregational theology (it is not safe to assume that a congregation’s contemporary theological stance was always the same – indeed, it seems to me safer to assume that it was not the same in the past), church governance style, and the background of individuals being transferred. These are among the clues that can be revealed when membership transfers are taken as seriously today by church historians, archivists and others, as were transfers when the transfers were first issued.
(H) A clue to the history of an (ultimately) prominent figure in Vancouver and at First Baptist Church, in particular: Charles Bentall. He would become a principal of Dominion Co. and instrumental in rebuilding FBC’s sanctuary following the 1931 fire in our current (Nelson at Burrard) building. He was being transferred from Jarvis Street Baptist (Toronto) in 1909; that is the same year as Dr. H. Francis Perry left Jarvis Street for the pulpit at FBC Vancouver. Notably, Perry would be followed in the pastorate at Jarvis Street by T. T. Shields. Shields would remain there (not without considerable controversy) until his death in 1955. From “Correspondence File 1909”, Archives, First Baptist Church, Vancouver, BC.
Notes
¹Letters of transfer came into play (perhaps obviously) only for those people who had been members ‘in good standing’ at a ‘regular’ Baptist church. Without getting into a detailed discussion of Baptist denominational distinctives prior to the 1920s, suffice to say that non-Baptists could not have their membership from a non-Baptist church transferred to a Baptist church in the fashion described above. They would need, most probably, to be baptized in order to receive Baptist membership. (Today, a person could become a member at First Baptist from a non-Baptist church without being baptized “by experience” if adult immersion baptism was practiced at their previous church).
²I don’t know what Fairview Baptist Church’s by-laws required at this time regarding votes on admission of new members. But the earliest by-laws of First Baptist Church, Vancouver, indicate such a vote must be unanimously in favour in order for the person to be admitted. However, “Should any objection be made the case shall be postponed and the objection inquired into. If the church on inquiry shall regard the objection as unscriptural, it may be overruled.” (Handbook, First Baptist Church, 1889)
³West End Baptist Church was made up of about 50+ former members of First Baptist Church, Vancouver between 1904-06. The members who left the mother church to form WEBC were loyal to the most recent pastor, Rev. Dr. Ronald Grant (who, apparently, had been urged by the FBC powers-that-be to seek work elsewhere). Grant preached at WEBC for a few months, but left Vancouver soon after. Rev. Dr. M. L. Rugg was called by WEBC to become their pastor and he remained until the members decided in 1906 to reunite with FBC. During its brief life, WEBC met at Pender Hall (SW corner, Pender at Howe) and also in a building on Granville between Nelson and Smythe.
Howard and Mary Plummer, 1924. In Bolivia (probably on the Pantiel Experimental Farm, there) . Photographer unknown. From: These Sixty Years, 1887-1947. Being the Story of First Baptist Church Vancouver, BC. By: W. M. Carmichael.
Howard’s Early Years
Arthur Howard Plummer (1900-1970) had his first taste of a mission career when he was 8 years old. In 1908, he accompanied his parents from their home in England to Wenchow, China, where his father, Dr. William Edwin Plummer, served as a medical missionary for a year. In 1909, the family returned to England and Howard went to boarding school there.*
It isn’t clear why the family moved to Canada in 1913. They initially moved to New Brunswick and Howard entered a boarding school in Rothesay. In 1917, the Plummers moved west to Saskatoon where Howard finished high school. Following that, he spent two summers on a prairie farm and two winters at the University of Saskatchewan. In 1920, the family moved yet again, this time to Vancouver, where Howard enrolled in the Agriculture faculty at UBC. He graduated in May, 1924 with a B.S.A.
Dr. and Mrs. Plummer joined First Baptist Church in 1921. Howard was baptized and also joined the church in that year. For 2 years, Howard was “Efficiency Superintendent” (whatever mysterious responsibilities that position entailed) of the Vancouver Association of the Baptist Young People’s Union (BYPU). In 1923, he was President of the Provincial BYPU. And in 1924, was Superintendent of the Hastings East Baptist Sunday School.
It seems that sometime in early 1924, Plummer approached Rev. J. J. Ross (1870-1935), the pastor at FBC, and expressed interest in serving as a full-time Baptist missionary in Bolivia. Whatever it was that inspired him to want to serve in that South American country, he had certainly said the ‘magic word’ among Canadian Baptists at the right point in time to receive a positive reception. He met with an assortment of Baptists (clergy and laity) who gathered at FBC on August 27th to form a council of examination and ordination that ultimately would decide that Plummer had indeed been called of God for service in Bolivia and, indirectly, that he had the ‘right stuff’ for this task.
At the time that Plummer was undergoing his ordination exam, he was also engaged to be married to a young woman who had grown up in First Baptist, Mary Evangeline Pattullo. Not much is today known of Mary. She was one of three daughters born to Mr. and Mrs. James Pattullo, a Vancouver barrister, who had been granted the designation, King’s Counsel (K.C.), and was a senior partner in the firm of Pattullo and Tobin. Mary was baptized at FBC in 1912 and became a member of the church that year.
It isn’t clear how long she had been Plummer’s “bride elect”, but I’d wager it hadn’t been long; probably it had just been from a few months prior to his August 27, 1924 ordination exam. They were to be married a week later, on September 2nd.
The Ordination Council “unanimously and enthusiastically” approved of Howard Plummer’s responses to their questions and was “voted into fellowship” by them. Later that day, during an evening service at First Baptist Church, a congregation of some 1800 packed FBC for the service at which Plummer was formally ordained for Gospel ministry as signalled by the “laying on of hands”. Among those on hand at the service was former FBC pastor, Rev. Dr. J. Willard Litch, Superintendent of Missions in B.C. and Alberta. And, even more notably present was 85-year-old B. C. Baptist “Pioneer” Rev. D. G. McDonald who was present to give “the charge” to the candidate. “Infrequently is such a charge delivered to a young minister or missionary!” enthused the official account of the service in FBC’s minutes. Clearly, great things were expected of Plummer and of his service in Bolivia.
Bolivia and Furlough
It isn’t clear from FBC’s records when exactly Rev. and Mrs. Plummer departed for Bolivia, but it was likely late 1924 or early 1925. Whether they received any formal training for what they would face overseas (and in Bolivia, in particular) isn’t clear. But it seems likely that if they received any preparation or language instruction for their time there, it was minimal, certainly by today’s standards.
There is no information that I’ve been able to dig up pertaining specifically to the contribution of Howard and Mary Plummer in Bolivia. There are accounts of contributions made by a number of Canadian Baptists in that country prior to and around the period of the 1920s.
It isn’t clear whether they had any break during their 5-year term in Bolivia. However, at the conclusion of their first term in 1930, they had earned a furlough. How lengthy a rest period this was to be isn’t clear, but it was certainly a matter of months, perhaps as long as 12 months.
Howard’s name appears in the Vancouver Directory for 1930. At the time, he was living in one of the 5 units in Caroline Lodge (305 W. 12th Avenue; extent), where Mr. and Mrs. Pattullo, Mary’s parents, also resided. His name appeared with the abbreviated honorific, “Rev.”, and with the occupation, “missionary”. It isn’t clear whether or not Mary was living with Howard at the time. Her name doesn’t appear in the listing, but that was more the rule than the exception at the time, when it came to showing the spouse of the “head of household” in city directories. (For example, the listing for Mr. & Mrs. Pattullo appears simply as “Patullo, J M”).
On August 7th, 1931, Mary Plummer went to the roof of Strathmore Lodge (1086 Bute Street; extant; about 3 blocks SW of FBC, as the crow flies) and jumped. The fall would have been one of 8 stories (7 residential levels plus the roof). Death appears to have been instantaneous. She suffered multiple skull fractures.
No autopsy was deemed necessary. The coroner’s investigation (the day after Mary’s fall) seemed to conclude that the underlying cause of death was mental illness that led her to suicide.
Why Mary chose Strathmore Lodge to jump from, I don’t know. Perhaps she knew someone who was residing in the building at the time (although I’ve scanned the names of those living there, as listed in the 1931 city directory, and don’t see any names I recognize). Who can say, especially at this great remove, what was going through her mind when she felt moved to go up to that roof and jump.
Strathmore Lodge, Vancouver’s West End. 2017. Site of Mary Plummer’s 1931 death. Author’s photo.
The obituary for Mary Plummer was very basic. But it suggests an interesting clue pertaining to the life of the Plummers just prior to Mary’s death. Mary’s obituary described her husband as “Rev. Arthur Howard Plummer of Chemainus”. Huh? He’d been living in the same home as his in-laws, presumably with Mary, in Vancouver in 1930. Between then and August 1931, it seems clear from this, Howard and Mary had separated and he’d moved to Chemainus. There is nothing in the Chemainus directory of that year (or subsequent years) to confirm that he had taken up residence in that town. He may have been bunking with a friend.
Life After Mary
Whether he reached the conclusion before or after Mary’s suicide, Howard decided that he didn’t want to return to the mission field in Bolivia. In fact, his mission career was over. He decided to pursue a ministerial career; and so he sought a job as a church pastor.
Openings for Baptist ministers at that time in B.C. were not thick on the ground. The Great Depression was just ending. And there was significant disunion within the B.C. denomination since the ‘Big Split’ of 1925 into the Regular Baptists and the Convention Baptists.
Oakland Tribune. 4 Jan, 1934.
So it isn’t surprising that Howard looked to the United States for work. He found employment in 1934 with Tenth Avenue Baptist Church of Oakland, CA. That church was looking to expand their staff from a solitary pastor to a pastor and five associate ministers, or ministerial ‘aides’. The position which Tenth Avenue wanted to fill with Howard was one of three ‘pastoral visitation’ ministers. This seems to have been the ideal post for Howard. He had had no real pastoral or theological training as far as I can tell. Nor would he have had much opportunity in Bolivia to hone any sermon delivery skills he might have had. But he could probably swing the job of “pastoral visitation”! He seems to have remained in that job about four years.
By 1938, he’d accepted a call to be the pastor at Visalia (near Fresno, CA) Baptist Church.
Sometime between 1934 and 1939, Howard remarried. Very little is known of his second wife. Her name was Lulu Helen Keizur. She was born in 1902, and before marrying Howard, was a school teacher who lived with her parents.**
By 1959, Howard had accepted a call to become pastor of First Baptist Church in Port Townsend, WA. Sometime after 1965, Howard seems to have retired and the Plummers moved back to the Los Angeles area. He died there in December, 1980. Lulu died in 1983.***
Conclusions
It isn’t certain that Mary’s suicide was directly linked to the prospect of a return to Bolivia. It may have been, or it may have been that Mary despaired over the state of her marriage, or that some other factor was in play that we aren’t privy to.
The Ordination Examining Council plainly didn’t consider Mary to be a full partner with Howard in his ministry work in Bolivia. She received only a single mention after the Council had pronounced “enthusiastically” in favour of Howard: “At the conclusion of the ordination. . . a beautiful bouquet [was presented] by the ladies of the Church to the bride elect, Miss Mary Evangeline Patullo, whose marriage to the Reverend Arthur Howard Plummer, B.S.A. will take place in the church on September 2nd.” This, it seems plain, did a real disservice to Mary. A bouquet would not serve her well during the five years ahead in a wholly foreign country.
Howard and Mary Plummer were ‘green as grass’ when they were sent to Bolivia by First Baptist. They deserved more preparation for what they would face; for the loneliness; for the absence of family and friends and things that they were accustomed to.
Notes
*Thanks are due to Dr. Donald O. Anderson. His ‘fingerprints’ are all over this post. Thanks for reading patiently and providing sage counsel as I unloaded on you regarding this one, Don!
**My thanks to Neil Whaley who tracked down Lulu’s surname, date of birth, and occupation.
***Thanks also to Karalu, for correcting the death years of Howard and Lulu. Howard and Lulu were her grandparents.
LEG1709.1 – First Narrows. Proposed Suspension Bridge for Foot Passengers Only. 1909. Plans signed by Frederick Tytler.
The plan above appears to have been one of the first proposals for a crossing of the Burrard Inlet at First Narrows (preceding the very different Lion’s Gate Bridge by about 30 years). It was the brain child of William Thomas Farrell¹ of the Burrard Wire Bridge Company and his draughtsman, Frederick Tritely.
In a June 19, 1909 article in the Vancouver Daily World, the proposal was described as follows:
Briefly, the plan is this: To erect on either side of the Narrows a tower of sufficient elevation and strength to maintain at a proper height cables that would carry with safety pedestrians from one side of the Narrows to the other; as a recompense for the outlay a small toll would be charged for the privilege of crossing. . . . To maintain at a height of 240 feet above high water the center of the span, it will be necessary to have the towers at each end of the bridge 335 feet above sea level, which allows for a sag of 66 feet in the center. The towers will be 1280 feet apart, or nearly a quarter of a mile, which will place this third on the list of long spans. . . . To guard against falling or being blown over the side a fine-mesh wire netting, strongly supported, will be placed on either sides of the roadway and will be eight feet high. It will be almost impossible to even scale this fence owing to its peculiar construction. An electric hoist will transport passengers from the base of the level of the bridge. . . . Mr. Farrell, the promoter, states. . . . “From a tourist standpoint I believe we will have something that will add to the fame of our city as much, if not more, than the beautiful natural forest at our western gate….It will be gratifying to learn that Mr. Farrell has been successful in interesting enough capital to erect and maintain the proposed bridge, and he only awaits the consent of the park board to begin its construction.
I’ll enumerate the principal facts of the proposal in summary form:
It would be for pedestrians only. There weren’t many automobiles in the city at the time; indeed, the first BC driver’s licenses would be issued only in 1925.
There would be a “small toll” charged for each individual who chose to cross the Inlet using the bridge.
The towers would have elevators installed within to take pedestrians up to bridge level and down to ground level.
The advocate of this proposal, W. T. Farrell, had been responsible for the construction in 1903 of the first Capilano Suspension Bridge (450-feet long). It is interesting that the office space of Farrell and that of his draughtsman, F. J. L. Tytler was in the same building (522 West Pender Street). In Room 8 at that address, Tytler maintained his civil engineering consulting office and there he also fulfilled his responsibilities as Principal of the Technical School of Civil Engineering & Surveying. Tytler didn’t have many years left to live following the conclusion of this proposal. In March 1912, it was reported that he “dropped dead on St. Andrews avenue, North Vancouver.” (Chilliwack Progress, 6 March 1912).
Whether it was strictly true that Farrell’s First Narrows proposal had adequate capital behind the scheme is difficult to know. But what was certain was that the Vancouver Parks Board had the power to approve the proposal or nix it. It need hardly be said that nix it they did.
[The proposal was] laid before the board, but the expressions of opinion were adverse to the proposition and Mr. Farrell for the [Burrard Wire Bridge] company asked permission to withdraw the petition for the present without a vote being taken. This was granted. (Vancouver Daily World, 15 July 1909)²
Notes
¹The William Farrell referred to in this post was not the William Farrell who was the first president of BC Tel.
²Other decisions taken by the Parks Board at that meeting included the following: The city solicitor would be asked to draft a by-law requiring dogs to be leashed when in the park (the dogs “harried the peacocks and swans and did other damage”); steps were being taken to get another cow buffalo for Stanley Park, as the buffalo resident there until recently had died; and the Board agreed to pay half the cost of fencing between the park and Mr. J. Z. Hall’s property, provided no barbed wire was used. “Mr Hall’s request for a private entrance to the park was refused.”
I have recently been introduced to British Columbia photographer, Nina Raginsky. How I have managed to live this long without being aware of her amazing photographic skill and talent, I don’t know!
Raginsky makes her home on Salt Spring Island and was recognized nationally in 2015 for her contributions to photographic art by having a postage stamp made of one of her best known Vancouver photos: Shoeshine Stand.
I’m including in this post some of my favourites by Raginsky from the Vancouver Public Library Historical Photos Collection. These images were all made in 1972 as part of the Leonard Frank Society of Documentary Photographers LIP Grant (Local Initiative Project). Other photos made with support from the LIP Grant may be found at the VPL historical photos link (there are 355 LIP Grant photos at the site).
VPL 88648 “Portrait of a Concierge”. Nina Raginsky. 1972
VPL 88622 “Man with large camera and microphone (Roy LeBlanc of CBC) in front of signage for rooms”. Nina Raginsky. 1972.
VPL 88679 “View of a man through a heavily graffitied window”. Nina Raginsky. 1972.
VPL 88687 “Coffee cups and pie cooler in cafe”. Nina Raginsky. 1972.
VPL 88676 “Portrait of a woman wearing a uniform”. Nina Raginsky. 1972.
VPL 88617 “Man with bicycle in workshop” Nina Raginsky. 1972.
VPL 88653 “Man in coat and hat standing outside hotel entry”. Nina Raginsky. 1972.
VPL 88674 “Portrait of a tall man standing in front of a street mural”. Nina Raginsky. 1972.
VPL 86864 “Young couple in doorway”. Nina Rajinsky. 1972.
VPL 88678 “Pedestal sink and pail in work environment”. Nina Raginsky. 1972.
VPL 88673 “Portrait of a girl outside a bakery”. Nina Raginsky. 1972.
VPL 88666 “Portrait of a man in a cafe”. Nina Raginsky. 1972.
VPL 88660 “Man working in machine shop on railcar no. 7073”. Nina Raginsky, 1972.
VPL 88659 “Group of men in a lunchroom”. Nina Raginsky. 1972.
VPL 88663 “Wash area with row of sinks in industrial building”. Nina Raginsky, 1972.
VPL 88619 “Portrait of two men”. Nina Raginsky. 1972.
VPL 86863 “Teenage boys with cigarettes”. NIna Raginsky. 1972.
Vancouver Sculptor, George Norris, poses with a model of the liquid-filled glass prism – along with a model of the little park at the western end of the Georgia Viaduct – while pointing to where in the park the prism would be located. Vancouver Sun. Oct 20, 1971. Dan Scott photo.
But there is a small subset of Norris’ public art works which have been removed.¹ One of these works is the liquid-filled glass prism which formerly was on the NE corner of Georgia and Beatty Street – at the western end of the current Georgia Viaduct (1972-present). The sculpture and the park in which it would sit were designed to be memorials to the former Georgia Viaduct (1915-72) which for clarity I’ll refer to by its original name, the McHarg Viaduct.
Given that the current Georgia/Dunsmuir viaducts are today marked for demolition, it is interesting to think about why the park was created and the Norris sculpture was commissioned. My suspicion is that this may have been a sop from Mayor Tom “Terrific” Campbell and the Council that was dominated by his fellow-Non-Partisan Association partisans. This may have been intended to mute the outcry of so-called ‘anti-development’ forces who had raised such a stink over the
Looking east on the current Georgia Viaduct sometime after 1971. Source unknown. Photographer unknown. n.d.
replacement of the McHarg Viaduct with the Georgia/Dunsmuir viaducts at the expense of Hogan’s Alley and a number of homes and businesses in the Main Street and Prior Street area. Council spent $13,000 on Norris’ work.
CVA 772-123: Looking north up Beatty at Georgia. Between 1980-97. The Norris sculpture is visible to the south of the Armoury. The former Greyhound and Pacific Coach Lines long-distance bus depot is visible on the west side of Beatty (on the future site of the Vancouver Art Gallery). This is a crop of the original CVA image.
According to an earlier version of an online article written about Norris and his work, the sculpture was removed in 1987. (This date seems too early. I moved to Vancouver in 1991, and I recall seeing the prism at its location in the park after I arrived; the current version of the article has crossed out that year as well as its original assertion that the prism was in storage at the Surrey Works Yard – I have no current information on where the Norris prism is). Note: See comment below from JMV of Illustrated Vancouver for more on the date the sculpture is thought to have been removed.
The reason the Norris sculpture and the park were removed seems to have been pretty straightforward and predictable: the City wanted to develop the land on which they sat.
Georgia & Beatty, Vancouver. There is now a condo housing development on the former site of the Norris prism and park. Google Map, 2017.
Note
¹There has been at least one other Norris sculpture which has been removed from its original site: his pinwheel at Pacific Centre (located between the entry to what then was Eaton’s and the Toronto Dominion building, at Georgia and Granville). It was installed in 1974 and removed in 1988. “In 1996 a section of the steel design was famously mistaken for scrap metal and destroyed; the artist was understandably upset with this revelation (not to mention the work had been worth $50,000).” Source: Scout Magazine profile of Norris.
First Baptist Church, Vancouver, mis-identified on this postcard as “Christ Church Cathedral”. Mailed in 1927 from San Diego to Kingsbury, Quebec. “Printed by the Heliotype Ltd. Ottawa.” n.d. Photographer’s name not shown.
This postcard of mis-identification was presented to me about a year ago as a gift by JMV of Illustrated Vancouver. The image appears to have been made between 1911 (when construction of FBC at Nelson & Burrard was completed) and 1921 (when right-side-of-the-road driving was established in the province, as the vehicle passing the Nelson Street doors appears to be on the left side of the road). I have no idea how many of these mis-identified cards were printed, but I’ve never seen another.
For another case of mis-identification (as of February 2017), see the City of Vancouver Archives photo below. Once again, the two churches involved are First Baptist and Christ Church. This time, however, the shoe is on the other foot. The interior of what is plainly (to me) Christ Church Cathedral is mis-identified as First Baptist Church!
CVA 1187-44: Mis-identified by City of Vancouver Archives as “Interior of First Baptist Church.” This isn’t FBC’s interior, but that of Christ Church Cathedral. ca1950. Artona Studios photo.
The sanctuaries of the two places of worship have little in common except their proximity to one another (FBC is at Burrard and Nelson; Christ Church at Burrard and Georgia). For comparison purposes, a photo of First Baptist’s sanctuary, ca1931 (post-fire reconstruction), may be viewed here (the second photo in the post).
UBC Historical Photograph: UBC 1.1/1080. “Showing army huts [sometimes referred to by early faculty/students as ‘Hotentot Huts’] south of the Library”. 1948.
If this view of the UBC Main Library (today known as the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre) seems strange, it shouldn’t be surprising. It has been awhile since the library building and environs have appeared this way. The main entrance of the library isn’t visible. The windows on the right side of the photo are where the stacks were located and the windows were on the opposite side of the building from where the main entry was.
If that still isn’t clear, try this: Imagine you are standing near where the clock tower is today; you are facing the library’s main entrance. The wing of the library on your right is where the temporary army huts are located in this image.
Update: January 28, 2017
Interior of Bus Stop Cafe in 1969. It seems to have earned for itself a popular reputation as early as this year. No idea whether the cinnamon buns had been then introduced to the menu! UBC Historical Photograph: UBC 5.2/35
During time spent at UBC in the late 1980s, I recall a faculty member referring new students to “the bus stop coffee shop” not far from the Main Library (roughly where the campus White Spot is located today, inside the David Lam Management Research Centre) as being the source for the best cinnamon buns at the university. And I recall wondering why the coffee shop was so named. There were certainly no buses anywhere near that location. (In the 1980s and until relatively recently, the central bus loop was located adjacent to where the Student Union Building is).
I believe the UBC Campus buildings shown here were, moving l-r: Agriculture (now math annex), Bus Stop, Gymnasium (now Buchanan Toewer), Main Library, Science building. cdm.arphotos. UBC Historical Photograph: UBC 1.1/308. 1930. Leonard Frank photo.
It wasn’t until stumbling across the image above that this low-grade mystery was solved for me. The structure in the middle of the Leonard Frank photo is the central bus stop in 1930. And, yes, the bus stop appears roughly to be at the same location as the Bus Stop Cafe of the 1950s-1990.
Miss Jefferd was never at a loss for an apt epithet, often with a touch of malice. Even yet, I hesitate to quote those applied to various professors which were hilariously funny and with enough truth to sting. But I might mention one or two referring to places of things in the [Main Library] building, which for thirty years, were common library terminology, such as the “Cave-Brown-Cave”, “Mysteria,” and the “dinosaur”. All have entertaining stories, now part of our library folklore.
– Anne M. Smith in Scrapbook for a Golden Anniversary: The University of British Columbia Library, 1915-1965, p. 16.
Miss Jefferd. UBC Open Collections cdm.arphotos.1-0028735full. n.d. George Van Wilby photo.
Miss Smith, unfortunately, had nothing more to say in Scrapbook about Dorothy Jefferd’s epithets. Her final sentence was so tantalizing, I found myself internally pleading with her: Tell me one of these “entertaining stories”, please!
Alas, Miss Smith (1899-1990) and Miss Jefferd (1889-1971) have gone to their rewards. And in their absence and that of so many other library staffers for whom the terms ‘Cave-Brown cave’, ‘mysteria’ and ‘dinosaur’ would probably have been assumed knowledge, and with the recent wholesale renovation of the building that once was Main Library (into the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre), it has proven no small challenge to unearth what these terms referred to.
Venturing into the Cave-Brown Cave
Anne M. Smith. UBC Reference Librarian and later Assistant Librarian. cdm.arphotos.1-0020708full. n.d. Gordon Pinkerton photo.
I won’t keep you in suspense. The Cave-Brown Cave was, in fact, much less interesting than the epithet suggests. Indeed, according to Miss Smith’s contribution to UBC’s oral history (at about the 25 minute mark) the ‘cave’ was a windowless area that served as the staff tea room. There is no photograph of the tea room in the UBC Photo Collection, as far as I know. However, given Miss Smith’s verbal description of where it was located, I figure (and Erwin Wodarczak, of the UBC Archives, agrees) that it was probably at or near the Storage room shown in the crop of the 1964 drawing of the 3rd floor of Main (one floor up from the entry floor) shown below. The ‘cave’ element of the epithet is clear enough – since the room would have been a relatively dim space, without any windows. But what of the rest of the label? According to Miss Smith, the room was named after a Miss Cave-Brown-Cave who was a library staff person. It isn’t clear to me exactly who this person was. There is no record of a Cave-Brown-Cave in the list of librarians at the back of Scrapbook. It could be that she was a part-time staffer and/or a student.¹ Just why the tea room was named for this person has also been lost in the mists of time.
There seems to be little doubt that Mysteria was a room located in the basement (Level 1) of the Main Library. The basement was originally in large part given over to Men’s and Women’s locker rooms/washrooms and a fan/engine room (which presumably was the building’s electrical and heating plant). That changed over the decades; eventually the locker rooms were removed and the remnant was the fan/engine room, washrooms, a Bindery, and a Storage room. It would have been very unimaginative for librarians to refer to the latter as a Storage room, however. That room became Mysteria!
Mysteria seems to have had its first documented mention as such in the 1952 minutes of a meeting of Library division heads:
Operation Mysteria: Mr. [Neal] Harlow [Head Librarian] asked Miss Alldritt to report on this project. Miss Alldritt replied that the work was done, except what lurks behind the plywood partition in the cloak room. Everything remaining in Mysteria is shelved and everything that goes into Mysteria henceforth is to be shelved immediately. The room is now in good order….As soon as possible, the plywood partition will be taken down and the material stored behind it examined. Miss Smith believes that a great deal of it is wartime propaganda.
The note struck in 1952 seems to have been a bit optimistic. Fully 15 years later, the monster backlog that defined Mysteria was back (or, more likely, it had never left):
New Home for the Backlog: M*Y*S*T*E*R*I*A: Beneath Circulation [which was on Level 2], lies a large dark hole called the Mysteria, wherein have accumulated government publication duplicates, triplicates, etc. After some negotiation, several institutions were found to be interested in acquiring various sets from the treasures: some were even willing to pay for them. Many will be going to up-state New York University; others to the National Library and other institutions. Simon Fraser University and the University of Victoria have already been through the collection from time to time. Packing started last Tuesday….
Crop of drawing of UBC Library, Level 1. By J. R. McKenna, Revised 7 Nov 1961. Note: I have cropped out all of the drawing except the centre block of the Main Library.
But if library staff had hoped to have slain the Mysteria Beast in 1967, they realized by 1977 that such hopes were the product of rose-tinted eyeglasses:
Living with Books in Storage: Stack space in the Main Library has been at a premium for many years now. As noted in the annual report for 1971/72, when books were returned en masse at the end of term, “in several areas, books would not fit on the shelves.” The problem of more books than shelf space is still with us – in greater intensity than ever. As a research library, we rarely discard books, a new building is not in the offing, and we continue to add about 50,000 new volumes to the Main Library every year. Like many other North American libraries, we have been forced to store part of the collection.
There are two major storage areas in the Main Library Building: Museum Storage, in the old Museum of Anthropology area, and “Mysteria” on level 1…. “Mysteria” is a holding area for the East Asian and Indic vernacular materials that will eventually move to the new library planned for the Asian Center.
The Dinosaur epithet remained a stubborn nut right up to the last minute before I published this post. I wasn’t able to find any documentary nor oral history sources that mentioned it (with the exception of the very bare reference by Miss Smith in the initial quote from Scrapbook).
Erwin Wodarczak, of the UBC Archives, didn’t know. He did speculate that it might have been a reference to the Fan/Engine Room on Level 1, “maybe because it was bulky and loud?” That made sense. My only guess was that Dinosaur may have referred to the room on Level 1 of Main Library where the Museum of Anthropology artifacts were stored (awaiting construction of MOA as a stand-alone site).
I decided I’d make one final search of UBC’s Open Collection to see if I could find anything more conclusive about the pre-historic epithet. I looked inside a 1959 Totem (UBC’s yearbook) and there it was on page 22:
‘Dinosaur’ was a huge free-standing bookcase located in the Riddington Room. It contained reference books. The Totem, 1959. p.22.
Eureka!
Notes
¹There was a Miss Genille Cave-Browne-Cave (note the minor spelling variation) who was a student at UBC around 1938. She may have have had a part-time student job at Main Library; I don’t know.
CVA 102-26 – Vancouver water works, Capilano water pipe repair. November 1890. Richard T. Llewellyn in diving suit on right. Bailey and Neelands photo.
What an odd assortment of people to see with a work party in Burrard Inlet’s First Narrows! I would expect to see most of the men here pictured, but not the four young women and three kids.
We are able to identify with some certainty only two people in this shot: the diver (“submariner”), Richard Thomas Llewellyn (in the diving suit on right) and his wife, Catherine Llewellyn standing just behind and to the right of the gent holding Llewellyn’s air hose (with RTL’s helmet in front of him). The child between RTL and Mrs. Llewellyn is most likely their firstborn, May, who would have been almost 2 years old. The Llewellyns would have at least four other kids before Richard’s death in 1900 from pneumonia: Selena (1890), John (1892), Mary (1894), and Richard Jr. (1895).
Llewellyn was an employee of the City of Vancouver Water Works. Following the portrait made for posterity by pioneer professional photographers, Bailey and Neelands, the men on this craft would set out with the task of repairing the water main between the north shore and the City of Vancouver. The S. S. Abyssinia, a steamer which plied Georgia Strait and Howe Sound, somehow “sat” upon the pipe, and thereby broke the principal source of Vancouver’s drinking water.¹ Until RTL and his team had made the repair, Vancouver had to make do with water from wells and that which was supplied from more distant sources by horse-drawn wagons.²
One of RTL’s later jobs was to “journey across the Fraser river on foot.” He was contracted to “recover the Telephone Co.’s valuable cable which was swept from its moorings by last year’s [1894] flood, and lost, opposite New Westminster.”³
I wasn’t hugely surprised that RTL died at the early age of 46. I was prepared for that; I did not anticipate that “submariners” in the late 19th century had particularly long careers or lives. So I was taken aback that his cause of death was pneumonia. To put it mildly, Mrs Llewellyn seemed more than surprised when Richard died in hospital. Indeed, she seemed to be in shock, even some months after his passing. Indeed, things got so dire for her and her family that they made headlines in the local newspaper:
HID HER CHILD FROM OFFICERS
Authorities Have a Heart-Rending Experience
According to the Daily World, one of Mrs. Llewellyn’s children, a “three-year old” (although a child of that age in the Llewellyn home doesn’t fit with birth records for the Llewellyns summarized above) had contracted suspected “diptheria”. In order to rule out or confirm that preliminary diagnosis, however, the child needed to be admitted to the City Hospital (Note: Not VGH, which would be founded in 1906 in Fairview at its current location, but the prior City Hospital – pictured below – which was at the SE corner of Pender and Cambie on which corner there has been a parking garage for several years).
City public health authorities went to the Llewellyn residence, with an ambulance, to remove the child to the hospital. I’ll let the World pick up the tale:
They went into the house, but the child could not be found, and the almost frantic mother admitted that she had hidden it. . . . [Vancouver Medical Health Officer] Dr. McLean had by this time put on a white wrapper, as he expected to handle the child. The doctor’s tragic appearance made things all the more exciting for the idle crowd that soon congregated outside the door. The neighborhood [of Strathcona; the family lived on Prior Street, just a few doors east of Main Street] is a populous one, and almost as soon as the trouble had commenced, a crowd of 150 men, women, and children gathered on the sidewalk in front of the door.
For fully a quarter of an hour, poor Mrs. Llewellyn proved more than a match for the officers. Several times, the latter thought they would have to give up the search, so effectually had the child been secreted. . . . Mrs. Llewellyn was alternately crying hysterically and denouncing the officers. She had a fear of the hospital – inherently believed in all her life, and no doubt deepened from the fact that her late husband had recently died there. . . .
Mrs. Llewellyn seemed impervious to reason, and for some time the search for the missing child was fruitless. But when [Assistant Health Inspector] Mr. Robinson tried to move a certain table, his attempt made the woman frantic. A little attic that could be reached only by standing on the table, was found by Mr. Robinson and the baby was resting on some slats laid cross-wise on several beams. She was either too frightened or too sick to make any noise. The uproar was redoubled when the child was found, for several other people joined in the chorus of protests. The mother tried half-a-dozen times to snatch her little one away, and altogether the scene was what Inspector Marrion describes as about the worst he has ever witnessed. Finally the doctor carried the child out to the ambulance.
Two guards were placed on the house, one at the front and the other at the back door, until the premises can be fumigated today. But the woman, with a second child in her arms, rushed past the guard and was half way across the street when she was caught by Mr. Robinson. She wanted to go to the hospital with the sick child. She fought and screamed again and had to be carried back into the house, and then the doors were locked.
Today arrangements are in progress for the fumigation of the premises.
— Vancouver Daily World. 22 September 1900.
Plainly, this wasn’t a public relations triumph for Vancouver public health authorities.
I couldn’t find any further mention in the Daily World of Mrs. Llewellyn with the exception of a couple mentions (one prior to the “hidden child” ruckus, and one a few months after) of her pleas for the City of Vancouver to purchase her husband’s diving suit. There is no indication from the World as to whether the city chose to purchase it or not.
Catherine moved to the central Kootenays at some point afterwards (the last listing of her in BC directories was 1904). She died and was buried in Burton, BC in 1950.
Interestingly, there is evidence that Catherine’s eldest daughter, May (the one pictured in the water craft with her Mom and Dad above) ended up marrying a physician!
CVA Bu P369 – Man and nurses on lawn in front of the Vancouver City Hospital. 530 Cambie Street (at corner Pender), 1902.
CVA Bu P264 – Exterior of Fred Ackers – Tobacconist and shoeshine man – 132 Cordova Street. ca 1895. I believe Ackers appears on the right; the unidentified black man is unknown to me. (Note: The original CVA image has been exposure-adjusted by me.)
I like this photo. It has a strong human element but enough contextual content that it isn’t exclusively about the two men who are its subjects. If I’d had my ‘druthers’, I would like to have seen the image in proper exposure (rather than in its still over-exposed condition; I did my best to bring it up to close to well-exposed, after the fact); I’m curious to know what the headlines on the Vancouver World newspapers say, for example!
Fred Ackers was in 1895 a very recent arrival in the city. There is no mention of him nor his tobacco/shoeshine stall, at any rate, in a BC Directory prior to that year.
Ackers’ shop was located on West Cordova between Cambie and Abbott (on the south side of the street) in the block where the Woodward’s condo development now is. He resided at Dougall House, which was a very short walk from his workplace (at the corner of Abbott and Cordova). Within a couple of years of Ackers moving on, his former stall was occupied by Miss Carrie Smith, milliner.
Ackers’ name pops up by 1901 in a different occupation from that of tobacconist: he (or someone of the same name) is a cook at the Atlantic restaurant. That wasn’t an eatery which I’d encountered before. Looking it up, I discovered that it wasn’t far from either the Dougall House or from his former tobacconist’s location: it was at 73 Cordova, George W. Bloomsfield, proprietor.
Lionel T. J. Haweis (1870-1942) was born in England to Rev. Hugh Reginald Haweis (1838-1901) and Mary Eliza Haweis (nee Joy) (1848-1898). Hugh preached at St James Church, Marylebone in London, but was known widely as a lecturer and author on music topics. Mary was from an artistic family and wrote books for women and children and created pen and ink illustrations for her work as well as that published by Hugh.
Lionel was the eldest of three children born to the couple. The other children were Stephen (1878-1969), an artist, and daughter Hugolin (1881-1957), a writer and singer in England. Lionel ran a couple of photographic studios in Vancouver, was a librarian at UBC, and was known for his poetic and dramatic efforts¹. For a summation of Lionel’s life and work, see here.
To the best of my knowledge, however, Lionel is not known for his illustrations. One reason for that is probably that his brother, Stephen, was “the artist” in the family. Also, I suspect that growing up in the home he did, and in the (Victorian) period, illustrating with pen and ink was considered by him to be a basic skill (sort of like having a rudimentary understanding of the piano and the C-major scale).
I’m including, below, the pen and ink illustrations I found in a booklet that Haweis produced in the 1920s, titled Seeds; it seems never to have been published.² It is a monograph which includes a single-page poem (the poem is not included below) and these several illustrations. The poem and illustrations are assembled loosely within paper wrappers, not as a bound book.
I’m not an expert on illustrations, but I know what I like. Haweis’ ink illustrations strike me as being very good – especially considering that they are the work of someone who was an amateur in this field.
This is the cover of “Seeds”.
This is one of my favourite Haweis ink illustrations.
I’m not certain that I’ve oriented this illustration correctly.
This is another of my favourites.
Notes
¹An example of his dramatic writing was The Rose of Persia. One of his poetic pieces was Tsoqalem: The Cowichan Monster (An Indian Legend), which was available for sale “at all book stores” for 75 cents at Christmas, 1917.
²Seeds is included in the Rare Book and Special Collections holdings at UBC Library. It is part of the Vancouver Vagabonds collection.
Crop from the deep background of CVA Str P338. Sign mounted atop the Petrina Block near corner of Cordova and Cambie (north side of Cordova). ca1889. Charles S. Bailey photo.
The original photo from which the above crop was made is the one featured at this recent post. I was zooming into the original shot, during the time that I was writing that post, when I noticed the sign atop the Springer-Van Bramer building (extant, but apparently known today as the Petrina block) at the corner of Cordova and Cambie. Mizony was not a name that I had previously encountered. So I jotted it down, expecting that I’d discover with a little bit of research that the name was widely known by Vancouver historians. However, as it turned out, the Mizonys were in town so briefly as to make relatively little impact on the collective Vancouver memory.
So who were the Mizonys¹ of Mizony & Co. Wines, Cigars, Liquors? There are two Mizonys who have listings in early Vancouver directories: R.T. (Rene Theophile) and Artemus (who appears to have been a junior partner in the firm, and a relative, possibly a brother, to Rene; Artemus doesn’t figure in this post).
CVA Port P41 – Mr. and Mrs. Mizony (Presumably, Rene and Anna). 188-
Rene seems to have been a shortened form of his full first name: Irene. Rene was married to Mary and they had a son, born in Colorado, and the only one to accompany them to Vancouver: Paul (1881-1975). Rene and Mary were both born in France; They seem to have both been (along with Paul) American citizens. (Note: At some point, I presume, Mary died and Rene married again, in 1904 – this time Anna Dunn, born in Kansas).
The Mizony family lived at 714 Nelson Street (near Granville). Paul was enrolled in Sacred Heart Academy (a Catholic school).
An early business venture seems to have been a restaurant on Cordova Street. It is identified on an early photo showing the business block in July 1886, “five weeks after the [Great] fire”. Mizony & Co.Liquors was located at 303 Cordova Street, in the Springer-Van Bramer Building (Hoffar, 1888). By 1891, Rene was managing Dougall House, a Hotel at SE corner of Cordova and Abbott; today it’s the building that houses the administrative hq of the Army & Navy Dept Store.
CVA – Str P7 – Cordova Street [looking west from Carrall Street] – July 1886 – five weeks after the fire. July 1886.
Rene and family came to Vancouver by 1886 (Rene was here in time to be on the first city voter’s list) and left as early as 1892; by 1894 for sure, as Rene’s name was dropped from the electoral list that year, “having left the country.” The Mizonys apparently left Vancouver to return to their home base of San Diego. They later lived in the mining town of Randsburg, CA.
CVA – Hot P34 – Dougall House being moved to the rear of lot on southeast corner of Cordova Street and Abbott Street. A brick structure would replace this wooden one as Dougall House; the wooden structure would become an annex behind the brick building, 1890. Bailey & Neelands photo.
Paul Mizony, in his retirement years, wrote a monograph titled Gold Rush: A Boy’s Impression of the Stampede into the Klondike During the Days of 1898.² In Gold Rush, he says that his parents, “Mr. & Mrs. I. T. Mizony… had always followed gold strikes or boom towns.” He then relates the story of his family’s journey to Alaska in 1898, a few years after their time in Vancouver. He tells how, upon their arrival in Dyea, Alaska, his father counted his cash…
and found that he had just $1.75. By good fortune we met an old family friend that we had known years before, in Vancouver, B.C. He had a furniture store and gave me a job as a clerk and handy man.
The name of the family friend isn’t provided at this point, but it is shared a couple of paragraphs later when Mizony refers to “Mr. Hart”, who “was also an undertaker.” The friend that they ran into in Alaska who employed Paul Mizony must have been Frank W. Hart (1856-1935), a pioneer Vancouver furniture salesman, undertaker, and the owner of Vancouver’s first opera house.³
Notes
¹Various spellings are recorded (e.g., Mizoney). CVA spells it “Mazoni” in one place; “Mizony” elsewhere. Family members seemed to spell it Mizony.
³This is confirmed by Vancouver Votes, 1886, p. 348: “In 1894 the Harts sold out in Vancouver and moved to Rossland. . . but during the Alaska gold rush Frank went to Dyea and invested heavily in real estate. . . . In 1908 the couple moved to Prince Rupert where the couple was again in the furniture and funeral business. . . . He died 4 May 1935 in Prince Rupert.
CVA 180-2739 – P.N.E. Shrine Circus float in 1955 P.N.E. Opening Day Parade. Aug 1955.
The first time I laid eyes on this photo, I saw the prominently displayed “MEATS” sign and immediately assumed I was looking at an early version of the Save On Meats sign – where it is today on the north side of the unit block of W. Hastings.
But, with further study, doubts developed about that conclusion and an internal debate began:
MDM1: Wait a minute… if the MEATS sign was on the north side of Hastings in 1955, as it is today, what is the Army & Navy department store doing opposite it?
MDM2: Well, 1, that isn’t difficult to answer. For many years, the Army & Navy had shops on both sides of W. Hastings, more or less opposite each other (a shoe dept. on one side and all other departments on the other).
MDM1: Ah, but allow me to point out that the address printed beneath the MEATS sign is 46 W. Hastings. Since we kn0w that even numbers are on the south side of east-west streets, that must surely clinch my assertion that Save On Meats was on the south side of the street in the mid-1950s. (And, although my case has been made, a couple of additional pieces of evidence buttress it: (1) The Rex Theatre is the white building adjacent to the main A&N shop (on the north side of Hastings). The Rex building is still there today, but it was swallowed up and greatly remodelled by A&N in 1959, thereby substantially increasing the retail space on the north side and making it unnecessary for A&N to have the Shoe dept. on the south side of Hastings; (2) The Beacon/Majestic/Odeon Theatre is opposite the Rex Theatre, right where it should be – on the south side of Hastings.)
MDM2: Not so fast, 1. Although you’ve successfully settled the question as to which side of the street the MEATS sign is on, you are wrong about it being the Save on Meats sign! In fact, if you’d allow your eyes to take in all of the signage in front of that shop, you’ll see a charming piece of neon with “Front Street” superimposed over a bull’s head. And if you check the BC City Directory for 1955, you’d see that a Front Street Meat Market was located at 46 W. Hastings!
Case closed!
Okay, okay! I think it’s a draw.
And there is a little more to the story.
The chap whose likeness appears to the left is Joe Zezula¹. He and (his brother?) Walter Zezula were the original owners of Front Street Meat Market. There were two locations of Front Street. The initial location was on the 700 block of Front Street in New Westminster (thus explaining the name). This shop seems to have been started in 1953. The Front Street Meat Market in New Westminster endured at least until 1963. However, only in 1953 was the New Westminster shop owned by the Zezulas (and starting in 1955, it had been moved off of Front Street to a location a block away, on Columbia). Starting in 1954, it seems that the Zezula brothers left the Greater Vancouver area.
By 1954, Front Street Meat Market (New Westminster) was under new management: Saul (Sonny) Wosk, whose portrait is on the right² (of the Wosks who owned the furniture shop on the south side of Hastings). The timeline seems to be as follows: Sonny acquired the original Front Street Meat Market from the Zezulas in 1954.
In 1955, Sonny opened another Front Street Meat Market at 46 (south side) W. Hastings, which he operated for a couple of years.
When Save-on-Meats originally opened in 1957, the location at 43 West Hastings Street was still serviced by interurban trams that brought customers nearly to its door. Entrepreneur Sonny Wosk founded the business, bringing in a young Al DesLauriers to run the meat department. . . . and when Wosk was ready to sell, DesLauriers bought the business.
So in 1957, it appears that Sonny closed Vancouver’s short-lived Front Street Meat Market on the north side of W. Hastings and opened Save On Meats almost directly across the street.
Notes
¹The Zezula photo is from the 1947 issue of The Totem, the UBC Yearbook. Zezula was in the Commerce class of ’49.
²Wosk’s portrait is from the Jewish Museum and Archives of B.C.
CVA 99-5297 – 10th Anniversary Salon dinner. Vancouver Vagabonds Club. Dec. 10 1924. Stuart Thomson photo.
The Vancouver Vagabonds was a men’s club. It didn’t last long (1914-1928), but it was fondly remembered by former members long after it had ceased to exist.(1)
The Vagabonds are generally believed to have been the creation of J. Francis Bursill (1848-1928). Bursill, an art critic with the Vancouver World (who was known by the pen name Felix Penne), was a member of the Vancouver Poetry Society, the Dickens Fellowship, the Shakespeare Society, and was founder of the Bursill Institute and Free Library in the Collingwood neighbourhood.(2)
Lionel Haweis (1870-1942) was responsible for the design of the Vagabond crest (the club motto was “Loaf and Liberty”). His vagabondian role was Scribe (or what would have been known as Secretary, had this been been ordinary club!) for several of the club’s early years.
The club’s crest, designed by Scribe Haweis. Motto of the Vagabonds was “Loaf and Liberty”.
What was the purpose of the Vagabonds? In a word, fellowship. But it was a sort of fellowship that wouldn’t have suited all men; and, indeed, it seems to me that the sort of fellowship promoted by Vags (as they called themselves) was of a sort that would be difficult to sustain in the post-WWI period (thus contributing to an explanation as to why the group petered out in the years after the war; more on that, shortly).
Vagabond John Ridington (1868-1945), UBC’s first head librarian, summed up the point of Vagabond meetings in speaking notes prepared for a Vag Salon at which guests and spouses of Vagabonds were present:
In some respects the Vagabond Club is a unique institution. In miniature it corresponds in some respects to the famous Garrick Club of London and the equally famous Lambs of New York.(3) Wealth or social position are not in themselves sufficient recommendation for membership….We welcome cranks, but bar bigots. . . . At times, serious and earnest enough, but we decline to take ourselves, or each other, too seriously. . . . We all long for the carefree life – to forget taxes [and] bills. . . – and be like grown-up children, enquiring, joyous, and irresponsible.(4)
At times, serious, but like grown-up children. That seems well to sum up the men who were Vags. Papers of a semi-academic nature were presented at meetings and literary, musical and theatrical efforts were encouraged. But there was also an emphasis on verbal jousting (5), word-play, and the absurd.
That sort of light-hearted spirit which evidently was present in Vancouver Vagabond meetings did not (and, arguably, could not) survive WWI and its cost of nearly 61,000 young Canadians. Further, A. C. Cummings (1885-1976), who was Editor of the Vancouver World, maintained that some of the best men associated with the Vagabonds in the club’s early years had later moved from Vancouver (like Cummings himself, who settled in New Zealand), had become weary from old age, or died. According to Cummings, at its end, there were no longer “energetic” men who were still Vagabonds who could hold the club together. Notably, Bursill died in 1928, the year the club wrapped up its activities.
For most of its life, the Vancouver Vagabond Club did not have a fixed address. This was doubtless part of the code of being a ‘vagabond’, a drifter. Among the halls and other spaces that Vags called home were: the University Club (310 Seymour), a room across from Forester’s Hall (at 930 East Pender), Brotherhood House (233 Abbot) and Glencoe Lodge (1001 West Georgia). For the quarterly salons (sometimes referred to as galas), they met variously in the University Club, the Dining Room of Spencer’s Department Store (as shown in the first image above) “the Lodge at Stanley Park”(6), the Hotel Vancouver (No. 2), Hamilton Hall (a former home of First Baptist Church at Hamilton and Dunsmuir), and at the homes of various Vag members.
There was a women’s club, the Comrades in Arts Club, which has sometimes been linked with the Vagabonds as having been a sort of Vagabondian women’s auxiliary. According to correspondence from A. C. Cummings, however, there was never such a link. Apparently a number of spouses of Vagabonds (including the wife of Cummings) were members of the Comrades, and that may have given the impression of a connection, but that was never the intention of the Vagabonds, according to Cummings (Letter from Cummings to Hooper, Nov. 2, 1967).
The Vagabonds played a lead role in establishing the Shakespeare Garden in Stanley Park on the tercentenary of the Bard’s death in 1916 (the quatercentenary of his death was in 2016). This, at least, was the impression in news items of the time.(7) Cummings recalls events slightly differently. He said that Bursill was “wholly responsible for the creation” of the Shakespeare Garden (Letter from Cummings to Hooper, Jan. 1, 1967). He noted that the opening of the Garden by the wife of the Park Board Chairman at the time, Jonathan Rogers, was “attended by the Vagabonds in force”. Cummings’ claim that Bursill single-handedly organized the Shakespeare Garden strikes me as improbable. There was, after all, a Shakespeare Tercentenary Committee which is (according to CVA) pictured below at the opening of the Garden by Mrs. Rogers (the bearded fellow on the left of the image appears to be Bursill).
Tr P24 – Mrs. Jonathan Rogers plants an oak to commemorate William Shakespeare’s Tercentary near pipeline road in Stanley Park. 1916. Frank Henry Gowen photo.
Notes
(1)I am indebted to Jacqueline Hooper for her research into the Vancouver Vagabonds, carried out in the late 1960s while a part-time VPL librarian and freelance writer. Hooper’s work was funded by the the Leon and Thea Koerner Foundation. Since Hooper was working in the 1960s, she had access to the living memories of some who were Vagabonds or spouses thereof. There seemed to be a longer-term plan that her research would be used as the basis for a monograph or book about the Vagabonds (and a MS by Hooper is included with the collection of Vagabond materials held in UBC Library’s Special Collection). To the best of my knowledge, such a document was never published.
(2) Bursill’s role as Vagabonds founder is mildly disputed by A. C. Cummings. In the opinion of Cummings, as an early Vag himself, the principal mover behind the club’s formation was UBC Library staffer and founder of the Rosetti Photographic Studio, Lionel Haweis (Letter from Cummings to Hooper, January 1, 1967). (There is a brief anecdote relating to Bursill in a letter from Vag Francis Dickie: “There are a great many anecdotes about [Bursill]. The only one I remember you probably don’t want to use: A Hindu acquaintance of mine, speaking of Bursill said ‘He is not very cleanly in his habits.’ A beautiful understatement.” (Letter from Dickie to Hooper).
(3) This is the only reference I’ve seen to the Garrick Club or the Lambs Club of NYC as possible forbears of the Vagabonds. More typically, when casting about for organizational family tree roots, Vags tended to refer to the Savage Club (London).
(4) In the April 3, 2013 issue of the Renfew-Collingwood newsletter, Paul Reid quotes “An Ode to the Vags” (which he seems to have unearthed from CVA’s Vagabonds collection). This poem, which claims to have been written by “Box Car Jimmy”, was probably penned by a Vag.
(5) I’ve noticed from time to time, descriptions of club meetings that borrow from Proverbs (27:17): “Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend.” This suggests that character-building (although of a secular nature; religion and politics were the two subjects that were verboten at Vag meetings) was part of the purpose of the Vagabonds.
(6) It isn’t clear to me whether this was a reference to the Stanley Park Ranger’s Lodge (which doesn’t appear large enough to hold a salon group of the number shown above in 1924) or to the Pavilion behind Malkin Bowl (or to another building?)
(7) Example: Vancouver Daily World. 7 February 1916.
Str P338 – Vacant lots on the north side of West Hastings street between Homer Street and Hamilton Street. ca1889. Charles S. Bailey photo. Annotation with arrow showing “Arlington Block” added by VAIW author.
This very early Vancouver image by pioneer photographic professional, Charles Bailey, makes me chuckle.
Not only is it a clear and sharp photograph of a time in Vancouver which would be nearly inconceivable today, without such images, but it shows a little slice of life at the time. The gent in the foreground has, apparently, spied himself a varmint of some sort (although it isn’t visible to me) in what must be described as an unofficial midden of the period.
But where on Hastings Street was this photo taken?
There aren’t many structural clues left of the old town to guide us. But there is one: the Arlington Block. Happily, the window configuration at the rear of the Arlington (which faces onto Cordova at Cambie and backs onto the lane between Cordova and W. Hastings) is unique. The Arlington is shown in the ca1889 image above and in the 2016 one (courtesy of Google) below.
Screen capture made from Google 2D view in December, 2016. Shows retail businesses fronting on the north side of West Hastings between Cambie and Homer. Note: Annotations and arrows in blue added by VAIW author.
The lot that was vacant in about 1889 is vacant today. But during most of the intervening years, it was occupied. The structure on the lot housed, for many years, the Clubb & Stewart clothing retailer. This building was known as the Rogers Block, after the owner, evidently. (Note: the ‘Rogers’ in question was not Jonathan Rogers of Rogers Sugar fame, it was an ‘E. Rogers’, probably Ernest Rogers, who was with B.C. Electric Railway).
The structure on its right (to the east) wasn’t there when Bailey’s image was made, but when it was established a few years later, it became home base for The King (photographic) Studio on the upper floors and R. A. Cambell and Sons (boots and shoes) on ground level. This structure still stands (today it houses Emery’s Cannabis Culture).
The building left (west) of the empty lot appears in the Bailey photo to have been little more than a wooden shack (it also appears in the cropped image below).
Crop of Str P18 – Looking west on Hastings Street from Cambie Street. ca1898. Note and arrow added by VAIW author.
The shack appears to have been a printer’s shop at one time. It didn’t last very long, however; it was replaced within a few years with the tall, brick structure (which is extant) that housed Buscombe & Co. (china and glass) for several years. More recently (1980s-90s), I have confirmed through a query of the current retailer in this building (Vinyl), the space was leased to Bond’s Bookshop (which I remember with fondness from my earliest visits to Vancouver; it had wall-to-wall books on the main floor and in the dimly lit basement. It has been so cleaned and brightened that the Vinyl space isn’t recognizable as the one where Bond’s once was!)
Before we close this post, you may be forgiven a nagging question. What became of the building that housed Clubb & Stewart and which was in 1898, and is again today, a vacant lot?
CVA 99-1783 – Miss E. Robinson and Pete Pantages, Royal Lifesaving Society members pose at snowy beach, 15 Dec 1927. Stuart Thomson photo.
Here are Royal Lifesaving Society members, Peter Pantages and Miss E. Robinson. (Sadly, we don’t know Miss Robinson’s first name; she looks like she was quite a character. Although Peter and Miss Robinson appear in the photo to be friendly, they didn’t marry. Peter married a girl three years later who was, like him, of Greek extraction, Miss Helen Antonio Sarantis).
Peter Pantages wasn’t associated directly with his uncle Alexander’s theatre empire in Vancouver or elsewhere. Pete’s claim to fame was the establishment of the Polar Bear Club in 1920, shortly after arriving here from Greece and for being the proprietor of Peter Pan Cafe (adjacent to the Hotel Martinique at 1180 Granville) and Peter Pan Hall — sometimes referred to as the Peter Pan Ballroom (at 1636 W. Broadway).
CVA 371-836 – The Polar Bear Club about to go for a swim on New Years Day. Jan 1 1939. Pete Pantages appears to be the left foreground in the photo.
I stumbled across a December 19, 1949 newspaper article recently (from the Lethbridge Herald, no less), which reported that:
Ten human polar bears took a ‘cool but refreshing’ dip in the chilly waters of English Bay Sunday.
Peter Pantages, president of the Polar Bear Club, will complete a 20-year record of a ‘swim every day in the Pacific Ocean’, New Years’s Day.
The temperature was 30 degrees above [Fahrenheit] as Pantages and his ‘Bears’ splashed in the bay. Specatators, bundled in overcoats, watched from a snow-speckled beach.
It was a trial round for the annual New Year’s Day swim when 50 club members are expected for a dip in the icy bay.
Today, the Polar Bear Swim attracts in excess of 2500 folks every New Year’s Day. With references to it as a “tradition” and a “crazy baptismal”, the Polar Bear Swim today may be one of the most faithfully attended events in Vancouver. I doubt that Pete Pantages ever imagined himself the founder of a local religion!
Fountain donated by Theresa Galloway in 1986. Was on Robson St near Hornby St until 2016. Author’s photo.
On October 1, 1986 – in Vancouver’s centennial year – this fountain was established on the north side of Robson street, a half-block east of Burrard (in front of the retail space that at that time housed the main store of Duthie’s Books and today is home to Tesla electric automobiles). It was developed as part of the Vancouver Legacies Program. The fountain was sponsored by Mrs. Theresa Galloway.
I noticed earlier this year that the fountain had disappeared from its location. I think it had been a number of years since it was connected to water services and so hadn’t been functional for awhile. But it was doing no harm and was still in good condition, not sullied by graffiti or otherwise marred.
My (unproven) theory is that it was no coincidence that the fountain was spirited away about 30 years after its unveiling. I suspect there was a clause in the agreement between Mrs. Galloway and the City that would ensure the fountain would be maintained for a 30-year period. If I’m right about this, I’d conclude that the City chose to take that contract literally (and negatively) and removed the fountain in 2015 or early 2016.
Theresa Galloway, who was not widely known for suffering fools gladly – whether they be government officials or otherwise – died in 1992, so she wasn’t around to raise a ruckus when the fountain vanished. And judging from what I have been able to discern, there was little fuss raised by others, either.
Mary Warburton (ca1871-1931) was a Vancouver nurse with a penchant for walking where she needed to go, regardless of distance or season. Two of her trips were reported in the news – one from Hope to Princeton in 1926; the other from Squamish to Princeton in 1931. Both trips were made in autumn.
On August 25, 1926, Warburton, age 56, left Hope for Princeton, a 65-mile journey. On foot. According to the account of Warburton’s trip as related by Michael Kluckner, she had finished a lengthy nursing stint with a terminally-ill patient and was heading to the Okanagan to take a working vacation as a fruit picker. She set out wearing a light khaki hiking outfit and supplied with food which would last four days: “4 packets of RyeCrisp, a half pound each of bacon, butter, and cheese, a pound of raisins, 2 oz. of almonds and some tea. . . . A frying pan, a billy [cooking pot], a spoon and a single-bladed pocket knife, plus a sketch map of the area and a compass, completed her kit.”
On the second day of her hike (and having travelled about 25 miles), Warburton took a wrong turn. On Day 3, she stumbled and lost nearly all her food in a mountain stream, except what remained of the half-pound of butter. She conserved the butter by eating only a small portion morning and night; but in a few days, it was all gone. From then on, the only nourishment Warburton got came from chewing leaves and fungae, which she did not swallow. She claimed that after the first week, she didn’t feel hungry.
Warburton was reported missing before the end of August and a search party was launched. By September 21, however, the search was all but called off. A final effort at finding Warburton, was undertaken, however by BC Provincial Police Constable Daugherty and a guide by the name of “Podunk” Davis.
“Shortly after pitching camp in Paradise Valley on Monday the[y] heard a faint ‘hello’, and after a search Davis came upon the nurse, who, supported by a stick, was tottering in the direction of the camp-fire smoke. She was in an emaciated condition and her clothing was in tatters. All that was left of her shoes were the soles, which were bound to her feet with pieces of rope.
‘You’re an angel from heaven,’ was the woman’s greeting as she collapsed at Davis’ feet.”
Warburton was transported by pack horses and automobile to Princeton , and “after arriving at the hospital, insisted on taking a hot bath, unaided, before she was put to bed.”
Warburton Peak, near Princeton, is named in her honour.
Five years later, and by then 60 years old, Nurse Warburton was again missing – this time, walking from Squamish to Princeton.
From the start, however, Warburton’s prospects on this trip seemed grimmer. The search seems not to have been initiated until 9 weeks after she left Squamish. And by the time of the search, it was the first week of November and accumulated snow would have been a factor along mountain trails. The length of her planned trip was also substantially greater (although for some reason the searchers confined the scope of the searches to the area between Squamish and Indian Arm.)
The initial search for Warburton was launched by BC Provincial Police Constable W. Gill and he was accompanied by trapper Jack Haysburg. On that first search, a note from the nurse was found, along with other “traces” of her. Gill and Haysburg set out on a second search the week following the first search. The searchers were hoping against hope that the nurse had taken refuge within a cabin along the trail between Squamish and Indian Arm.
Neither Warburton nor her body was ever discovered and she was presumed dead.
Questions arise when I think about Mary Warburton. Questions like: “How many other times did she undertake walks to outrageously distant locales?” and “Was Mary mentally ill? Or did she simply enjoy really long walks – alone?” Or perhaps Mary was just an early version of that multitude of contemporary hikers who keep North Shore Search and Rescue crews so busy by taking on the mountains of the North Shore, ill-prepared for Mother Nature’s nasty side and/or their own lack of fitness for the area.
___
Sources
• https://www.michaelkluckner.com/bciw2hopeprinceton.html. “The Search for Mary Warburton.”
Bronze formerly located at entry to Canadian Bank of Commerce (SE corner, Granville and Hastings). Today it is what appears to be a little used tiny foyer leading to a staircase in the Birks building (not the main entry to Birks; one door east of the main Hastings entry). 2016. Author’s photo.
Hans Gottfried Edita Lankau (1897-1971) was born and raised in Germany. He immigrated to post-war Canada in 1951 when he was in his mid-50s, settling in West Vancouver. His principal work in Canada consisted of casting large coats of arms in metal. The Bank of Commerce example which appears above (the only work of his of which I’m aware that is extant in Greater Vancouver) appears to be a coat of arms plus. It seems to me to be similar to a piece of jazz music: the straight-ahead theme is in the coat of arms (encircled in the middle of the work), with improvisations surrounding it. It is, in my judgement, a brilliant piece of relief sculpture.
There was another, later (1965), coat of arms in Vancouver by Lankau, commissioned by the former Bank of Canada at 900 West Hastings. But Lankau’s specialization of coats of arms tends to lead to even more speedy disappearance of the art than happens with other kinds of public artwork in Vancouver. Once the corporation leaves the site of the coat of arms, the arms, generally speaking, are doomed. (This wasn’t the case, technically, with the Bank of Commerce work, but it was squirrelled away into such a non-travelled corner of the new Birk’s headquarters as to be gone in all but fact).
Lankau’s other work is listed here. Just how much of it is extant, I don’t know. Little, I suspect. A giant piece of biographical mystery is his pre-Canadian training and works.
One of Lankau’s sculptures that remains in B.C. is the Canadian Coat of Arms at Confederation Court in Victoria. The Dictionary of Canadian Artists tries to make a case for Lankau’s Victoria work being deserving of the highest marks. The Confederation Park work may have been the more technically challenging of the two works. But in my opinion, the Bank of Commerce bronze is by far the most visually stunning of Lantau’s work in the province he adopted as home.]
CVA 70-23 – Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce building, 640 West Hastings Street, doorway. 1972. Art Grice photo. Here is the artwork in a more deservedly prominent location above the main entry to the building (when it was a CIBC structure).
Crop of CVA 586-1313 – A.R.P. District No. 16 Celebration. 1943. Don Coltman photo. (The “Queen” appears fourth from the left in front row: Viola Balzer).
The photo above was made in 1943 on the occasion of (among other things, perhaps) the crowning of the Air Raid Precautions (A.R.P.), District 16 “Queen” Viola Balzer from among other contenders for the crown (some of whom, I assume, are on the platform with her, in addition to her younger “attendants”).
The most interesting aspects about this image, however, are not the fact that it was considered advisable to have such a thing as a “Queen” of the A.R.P., nor the names of the other folks on the platform (most of whom are not known to me), nor even the location of the coronation (although it’s probably Stanley Park or Hastings Park).
Most intriguing to me are characters in this photo who, I suspect, were never intended to appear in the final (public) crop: the stray dog, and the three young male ragamuffins (one of whom appears to me to have been of East Indian ancestry) beneath the platform! I suspect that this image was made by professional photographer Don Coltman mainly for his own entertainment.
In the nearly 450 posts I’ve produced for VanAsItWas over the past two years, I’ve typically focussed on Vancouver’s past. I will continue that practice. But today I will pause to reflect and comment on a news item which I didn’t see until recently.
On August 10th, Vancouver Sun journalist, Bethany Lindsay, reported that…
The familiar glass rotunda and public square that welcome shoppers to Vancouver’s Pacific Centre mall may soon be gone, replaced by three storeys of new retail stores.
Cadillac Fairview’s plan for the corner of Georgia and Howe streets was presented to the city’s urban design panel at the end of last month, but the proposal requires the approval of Vancouver’s director of planning before it can become reality. If the application is approved, the site would see 31,603 square feet of new, glass-fronted retail space, including an outdoor restaurant deck on the third floor and a “green” roof with planters arranged in a geometric grid, as well as a new mall entrance on Georgia.
The design comes from the Vancouver office of Perkins+Will Canada Architects, and follows negotiations between the city and the mall’s owner that began more than a decade ago. The mall was rezoned to allow more retail space in 2006, after Cadillac Fairview agreed to take on some of the costs for building the Canada Line entrance inside its plaza at Granville and Georgia.
This densification plan seems to me to be just dense. Why?
First, the result will be another wall of commercial space added to a corner that already has plenty. The Hotel Georgia on the NW corner and the TD Building on the SE already present pedestrians with a very vertical geography of concrete and glass. Adding another wall to those already on that corner will do nothing to make the corner more inviting to pedestrians. (To experience a corner with a similar feel to what the redevelopers are proposing for this corner, walk just a couple of blocks to Dunsmuir at Hornby. Not attractive, is it?)
Second, Pacific Centre mall has precious few architecturally redeeming features, in fact I can’t think of any, besides the rotunda. It has effectively created a place where passers-by and mall shoppers can gather and rest their feet for a few minutes either in the area just outside the glass rotunda or inside. The rotunda accomplishes what no other part of the mall does: it allows the sunshine (liquid or otherwise) to be visible inside the ‘Pacific Cave’.
Third, this corner has ALWAYS been low-rise and low-density; and, except for a period from the ’30s til the rotunda was built, it was a public park/square. As I’ve illustrated below with historical photos from the City of Vancouver Archives, from its earliest years, this corner of Vancouver has been relatively under-developed. It is one of the very few downtown street corners of which that can be said. Indeed, only from 1932-c.1972 was there any real commercial development of the corner. Before then and since then, the site has been a public space.
1890s.
The corner in Vancouver’s early years was a park: CPR Park. Above, the East Indian Tea Co. (801 Georgia St) was using the elbow room that the park afforded to dry out a shipment of tea.
c.1900
A gazebo graces CPR park in the photo above. An inspiration for the rotunda?
A (decidedly low-rise and low-density) service station was on the site before 1932. c1930 Leonard Frank photo.
Until the Paciifc Centre rotunda replaced it in the 1970s, the McLuckie Building was on the corner from 1932.
In conclusion, it would be a great pity, in my opinion, if Cadillac Fairview and the City of Vancouver decide to demolish the rotunda and replace it with commercial space: You got one thing right with the development of Pacific Centre. Don’t mess up that one truly positive element 40 years later.
Sign in front of the Rotunda advertising the new building proposed for the site. Sadly. 2016. Author’s photo.
John Goss (1894-1953) was an Englishman by birth, but for most of his later years, he made Vancouver his home. In the 1920s and ’30s, Goss toured in the U.K., the U.S. and Canada as a recital singer, gradually building a reputation as a world-class baritone.
Shortly after the outbreak of hostilities at the beginning of the Second World War, Goss was in Canada and found himself stuck here for the war’s duration. During those years, Goss toured across the country, but Vancouver was his home base.
He opened the John Goss Studio at 641 Granville Street and built on his reputation as a baritone to become a notable singing instructor. A choral group performed in the Greater Vancouver area under the name of the John Goss Studio Singers. He also received positive reviews for roles he played in local theatrical productions (playing the composer Schubert, for example, in the Theatre Under the Stars production of Blossom Time in 1942). In 1949, in fact, Goss accepted a verbal offer from the principal of the BC Institute of Music and Drama (BCIMD) – which was connected with the Theatre Under the Stars – to join BCIMD as a faculty member.
Goss was also political. As early as 1941, he spoke out at the Canadian Federation of Music Teachers’ Associations, urging amateur musicians to “organize to avoid this ‘sweated labor’ by various well-meaning organizations which offer artists nothing more than a cup of tea in return for their services” (11 July 1941 Lethbridge Herald).
In 1944, he ran as a candidate for the Parks Board as a member of the Labour-Progressive Party (the legal political party of Canadian Communists from 1943 to 1959). His platform advocated that a civic centre be built, that city parks be beautified, and that more libraries be established. He came in dead last among candidates. He ran in the B.C. provincial election the following year (in the posh Point Grey riding no less), and while he didn’t come in very last that time, he garnered less than 1% of votes cast.
Starting in 1944, he co-founded and later became president of a new organization called the Labor Arts Guild. The Guild was intended to promote interest in the arts among labour and interest in labour’s struggle among artists. A number of the members of the first executive of the Guild were members of the Labour-Progressive Party.
“Aircraft Worker”. 1st Prize in BC at Work exhibition (1944?). This sculpture is still on display at the Museum of Vancouver. Author’s photo.
The Guild sponsored a number of ‘people’s concerts’. Its most notable achievement, however, was the mounting of two juried art exhibitions (in 1944 and 1945) titled British Columbia at Work. There was a single criterion for inclusion in BC at Work: the celebration of labour.
In 1949, Goss was evicted from the U.S. while in New York at a peace conference. The FBI made noises about Goss being a Communist sympathizer. He returned to Vancouver where he was under the impression that he had a job with the BCIMD faculty. Wrong. The BCIMD, together with many others in the city were not interested in a ‘Communist’ joining the staff of the Theatre Under the Stars group. There was no written contract between the board and Goss, and the Board made it clear that he could forget about working with BCIMD.
Goss left Vancouver for England the following year, with his reputation in tatters. He died there in 1953.
Selected Sources
Vancouver Art Gallery. Vancouver: Art and Artists 1931-1983, pp. 72-78.
Sutherland, Richard. Theatre Under the Stars: The Hilker Years. M. A. Thesis. 1993.
CVA 99-47 – [Group photo of the Corinthians Amateur theatricals]. 1912. Stuart Thomson. VAIW Note: If this image was made in 1912, as asserted, I suspect it was not an amateur production by ‘the Corinthians’, but rather a professional production of The Mikado by a NYC company. If I’m right about that, the theatre where this production was held was the English Bay Theatre (a later incarnation of what was the Imperial Roller Rink at English Bay).
Players
When I happened upon the photo shown above in CVA’s collection I said to myself, “That looks like a theatrical company in costume for Gilbert and Sullivan’s TheMikado!”
I could find no mention in local newspapers in 1912 for any performances by a “Corinthians” theatre group (indeed the only source I found that mentioned a “group of amateurs” by that name indicated that they were an English amateur football team – a soccer team as North Americans today would call it).
But my search for performances of The Mikado in Vancouver in 1912 was more productive. There was a professional production in September of that year by Shubert and Brady’s NYC Gilbert & Sullivan Festival Company.
Venue
The Mikado (and other G&S operas) was initially advertised to be held at the “Imperial Theatre”, but within days of that initial announcement, the ad copy was quietly changed to read the “English Bay Theatre”. The confusion was likely caused by the introduction of a new theatre in Vancouver which opened at about the same time: the Imperial, located on Main Street. The English Bay Theatre was a short-lived tenant in the former Imperial Roller Rink building (see photo below). The similarity in name between the Imperial Theatre and the Imperial Roller Rink was doubtless the source of the brief confusion in the ads.
The fact that G&S productions were held in the former roller rink, instead of in the far more commodious (and theatrically suitable), 1200-seat, Vancouver Opera House, was because the Opera House was closed for renovations in 1912 by the new owners, Sullivan and Considine (the CPR had sold the house in 1909). The closure of the Opera House must have accounted for the moaning in the press by the business manager of the G&S Festival Theatrical Company, Mr. Dillon, about the “distressing conditions” in which the Company would be forced to play. “We will not be able to use a great part of our scenery, but the people will understand the conditions.” The Mikado players shown in the image above, do indeed, seem to be crammed onto a tiny stage.
Crop of LGN 467 – [Crowds at English Bay in front of bathhouse and Imperial roller skating rink]. 1909? Richard H. Trueman photo. VAIW Note: The Roller Rink would later become, albeit for no more than a couple years, the English Bay Theatre.
Theatre Management
The ad for the G&S operas indicates that E. R. Ricketts was the manager of the English Bay Theatre. Ricketts had been the lessee of the Vancouver Opera House (on Granville) from 1902-1912. When the CPR allowed his lease to expire at the Opera House (as part of their plan to sell the house), Ricketts failed to get a new theatre house, at the corner of Pender and Burrard, any further than “the foundations”.
Robert Todd notes that “[t]he fall of 1912 found the manager [Ricketts] booking touring companies into the English Bay Theatre, the name he gave to the Roller Rink at English Bay; this was a thoroughly unsuccessful venture, producing houses of only a half and quarter capacity. He soon moved over to the newly built Imperial Theatre on Main St. which the Province reported, would be ‘the home of the best travelling companies until the new opera house is built – some months hence'”**. What was the capacity of the English Bay Theatre is anybody’s guess. But it was plainly substantially less than that of the Opera House.
Reviews of Play and Playhouse
Yes, and no. According the Vancouver Daily World, the production of The Mikado by the American theatrical company was “perfect”.
But the review of the ‘house’, the English Bay Theatre, was much less glowing. The Daily World reported that, after taking multiple curtain calls,
Mr DeWolf Hopper [the lead actor in the production; he played Ko Ko, better known perhaps as ‘the Lord High Executioner,’ in The Mikado] paid compliments to Mr. Ricketts for looking after the comforts of the artists and his allusion to the theatre being only a “temporary house” evoked a storm of applause which, being translated into coherent speech meant, “May we have a real good opera house soon – and may we have many such delightful entertainments as we have had tonight.”
The review concluded with a note that the G&S operas presented in 1912, “with two additional ones”, were scheduled to play in the renovated Opera House in the last week of September, 1914. (In fact, in October 1914, the G&S “Opera Co.”, as it was by then known – still with Brady, but sans Shubert – with DeWolf Hopper and the rest of the company would play in the Empress Theatre. And The Mikado was not among the operas that they would stage that year).***
Notes
*I am grateful to Vancouver theatrical history guru, Tom Carter, for this insight and for putting me onto the Todd article cited below which confirmed the Imperial Roller Rink as the later site of the English Bay Theatre.
** Robert B. Todd. “Ernest Ramsay Ricketts and Theatre in Early Vancouver,” Vancouver History, Vol. 19, No. 2 (February 1980), pp. 14-23.
***The 1914 productions were Trial by Jury, Pinafore, Pirates of Penzance, and Iolanthe.
Multnomah County Library. Program – The Mikado (The Heilig Theatre. Portland. G&S Festival Co. 1912). VAIW Note: This looks like a similar list of cast & crew to that which may have been used in Vancouver in September 1912. The Company was evidently on a North American tour in the autumn of that year.
Lithoprint of skyline of downtown Vancouver from Burrard Inlet. 1912. Bullen & Lamb photographers. University of British Columbia. Library. Rare Books and Special Collections. The Chung Collection. CC-OS-00178.
1912 was a significant year in the development of Vancouver’s skyline. Among the structures under construction that year were:
Sun Tower (visible at extreme left of “Vancouver Today” image above);
Third CPR Railway Depot (now Waterfront Station). This isn’t visible above. The earlier CPR Depot continues to be visible. It was knocked down after the new Depot was fully constructed. The dome apparently above the 2nd Depot is actually the top of the then-newish Post Office (1905-10) poking up behind the Depot;
CVA 1399-494 – [Photograph of Acme Novelty B.C. Ltd building, 7832 6th St., Burnaby B.C.(VAIW Note: See photo and comment below: This was not located in Burnaby, as CVA asserts, but in Vancouver at – see the printed address on the rear of the ANC van below – 428 West 8th Ave). 197-?
This image appears to have been made sometime in the 1970s; right around the same period when the hapless Wile E. Coyote was entertaining fantasies of terrorizing the nameless Roadrunner using machines built from products made by Acme.
The company portrayed in the image, however, could not have been the same “Acme”; this one included “Novelty” in its corporate name – a word which would rarely be associated with the products produced by the fictional company portrayed in the Warner Brothers cartoon – and never with the cartoon’s plot.
CVA 1399-495 – [Photograph of Acme Novelty B.C. Ltd building] at 428 W 8th Ave., Vancouver. 197-?
What was the Special Service Squadron of 1923-24? Here is how the official site of HMS Hood (1915-41) sums it up:
This epic journey, known to the public as the ‘Empire Cruise’ or ‘World Cruise’ (but called the ‘World Booze’ by the Squadron’s men), was a highly successful public relations victory for the Empire. It served as a subtle [?] reminder to friend and foe alike that Britannia still ruled the waves. The squadron logged over 38,152 miles and visited numerous foreign countries around the globe. During the course of this cruise, over one million visited the entire Squadron, with Hood getting approximately 752,049 visitors alone.
The Squadron in Vancouver consisted of battle cruisers HMS Hood and HMS Repulse and of light cruiser HMAS Adelaide (of the Royal Australian Navy). A number of light cruisers were left in Esquimalt (where the Cruise had docked prior to making its Vancouver stop). For a complete list of the Squadron’s ports of call, see here.
This image appears to have been made somewhere along the City of Vancouver waterfront, roughly between the foot of Howe Street and Stanley Park. The photographer is looking out to Deadman’s Island in the deep background and one of the battle cruisers (the Hood or Repulse) in the middle distance. Passing just this side of the battle cruiser is what appears to be a civilian watercraft (it looks a bit like a North Vancouver ferry, to me) of which, by all accounts, there were many, darting about as the battleships prepared to dock. MDM’s Bottomley Collection.
Scott O’Connor, author of The Empire Cruise, who was aboard the Hood during the Cruise, had this to say about their arrival in Vancouver on June 25, 1924:
The reception given to the Squadron at Vancouver was of an enthusiastic character, and only the welcome at Sydney [Australia] affords a parallel to the extraordinary scenes which marked its entry into Burrard Inlet. Tens of thousands of cheering crowds lined both shores, while the Squadron was escorted and followed in by literally hundreds of small craft which had come out . . . to meet it. . . . At Brockton Point the Squadron was received with a royal salute of 21 bombs [bombs? really?]. The escorting planes followed through the smoke of the bursting bombs and close behind them a shower of rockets was sent up giving birth to flags which fell slowly attached to parachutes. On landing, the Vice-Admiral was presented with an Address by the Mayor [William Reid Owen]. . .
It was, presumably, during Mayor Owen’s speech that a bison’s head (shown in the CVA image below) was presented to the Hood. I don’t know what possessed the City to choose this as a gift to a bunch of mariners. To the best of my knowledge, bison never roamed in the very forested area that had become Vancouver!
CVA 99-1211 – [H.M.S. “Hood” visit] dignitaries with bison’s head. 25 June 1924. Stuart Thomson photo. (VAIW note: Mayor Owen is standing just behind the bison’s head – he is the balding, hatless gent).
The Squadron was docked at Vancouver from June 24 – July 5. That allowed time for the federal government to host 20 officers and 200 crew members of the Repulse on a train journey inland for six days. They took the CPR from Vancouver through Revelstoke into Banff and Calgary, and then took the CNR from Edmonton to Jasper and back to Vancouver.
This ’round-the world trip was by no means an inexpensive enterprise for the British Navy. The Hood alone had a complement of well over 1000 crew. She was finally sunk in WWII off Denmark in 1941. All hands, save three, were lost in her sinking. The Hood was found and explored for the first time since its sinking in 2001 and in 2015, the ship’s bell was retrieved.
There are a couple of excerpted pages available from the log of the HMS Hoodduring its period in Vancouver for the Empire Cruise.
The following images came from this site (for more photos of the Empire Cruise arriving in Vancouver, please see this sister site of VAIW).
Since the Special Service Squadron left Vancouver for San Francisco on July 5th, I’m assuming that this ‘at home’ took place while the cruisers were still docked at Vancouver.
I’m not certain that this pantomime was held while the Empire Cruise was in Vancouver. This is a good example of an early ‘pre-Nazi’ use of the swastika. In Britain, the swastika was often used for decorative purposes prior to its being adopted by Adolf Hitler and Co.
CVA 1376-509 – [The Daily Province delivery boys in front of the building at 420 Cambie Street] ca1925.
These newsboys are a charming lot. The very few adults in the frame are in the background and in most cases, largely obscured by the boys. I spot only one boy who is a visible minority – the black boy apparently resting one of his arms on the mutt. I don’t see any Asians. One boy, in the back row, near the centre, is pointing at the (unknown) photographer with his index finger; he and his colleagues seemed to have had a significant dose of attitude! Small wonder that certain eateries in town made it clear that newsboys were to “Keep Out!”
This entry to the Daily Province building (420 Cambie) appears to be the entry to the Edgett wing of the newspaper complex – named after Edgett Bros. grocers, for whom the building was originally constructed; the other wing, across the lane, was known as the Carter-Cotton building – named for the publisher of the News-Advertiser newspaper which originally was in that structure. It looks to me like today’s entry to the former Edgett building is located roughly where this entry to the Daily Province was (where the Architecture Centre is today – 440 Cambie), albeit with a much less grand entry than the archway that was there when this image was made.
VPL 40055A. Pacific Press Building. 1966. David C. Paterson photo.
The Province used the Carter-Cotton/Edgett buildings until it shifted over to the custom-designed Pacific Press building at 2250 Granville (along with the Sun) in 1965. That building, in turn, was closed in 1997 and the newspaper headquarters were moved north to the foot of Granville Street (200 Granville).
CVA 99-4954 – I.B.M. [International Business Machines Company store (515 West Georgia Street) at night] 1936 Stuart Thomson photo.
This is an exterior shot of IBM’s Vancouver presence on Georgia Street (on north side, between Seymour and Richards Street) in 1936 (there is another image showing the building and NCR’s office in context with St. Andrew’s Church in the same year). Their monosyllabic motto of the time, evidently, was ‘Think’ – which also was the name of an employee/customer magazine that published its first issue the previous year. In 1935, the company marketed the first commercially successful electric typewriter (and it would continue to sell them until 1990). One of the portraits on the wall (flanking THINK) is undoubtedly of Thomas J. Watson (CEO, 1914-1956); the other may be of Charles Ranlett Flint, who consolidated four other smaller companies into Computing-Tabulating-Recording company (CTR), which was renamed International Business Machines in 1924. IBM’s Vancouver presence was apparently that of a branch office; the site of the Canadian factory and head office was Toronto.
I’ve had help from a reader of VAIW, recently (see comment), who recognized his Dad and a couple of other local IBM sales and service gents in the photo shown below. The commenter’s father was the local head of the International Time Recorder division. In case you are curious (as I was) about what that division was responsible for, see this link.
CVA 99-4785 – I.B.M. personnel. 1935. Stuart Thomson photo. The fellow sitting at the desk (in the corner) is Robert Nelles (1907-1966), manager of the EAM (Electronic Accounting Machines) division; Ferris Stricker (1892-1955), manager of the International Time Recorder division is the next person (moving clockwise and sitting under “Be of the TIMBER that produces PLANKS); the gent next to him is unknown to me; Harry Kitely, service manager, is seated on the right at front (sitting under the sign that reads “Turn plans into planks!”)
CVA 447-145 – St. Andrews United Church at Georgia and Richards Streets. IBM and NCR offices just visible in the left foreground. 1936 Walter E Frost photo.
CVA 809-27 – Woodwards Dining Room [at Hastings Street and Abbott Street] ca 1910.
This is an early Vancouver interior shot of the Woodward’s dining room in what is today East Vancouver, but at the time was considered by most residents to be ‘downtown’.
The Bay (Hudson’s Bay Company)
CVA 99-4070 – Hudson’s Bay Company [interior of store at 674 Granville Street]. 1931. Stuart Thomson photo.
This is how the Hudson’s Bay Company dining room appeared in the 1930s. I have now confirmed (with the helpful tip from a reader of VAIW; see comment below) that this 1930s location was on the top floor of The Bay (the 6th), but that it was in a different section of that floor than the dining room which I recall (before it was closed in 2013). The dining area which I remember looked out on Holy Rosary Cathedral and other such structures to the north and east of The Bay. The 1930s photo above, however, is located in the northwest corner of the 6th floor. The key to identifying where the photo was taken is the skylight (which is still on that floor; currently, men’s jackets and slacks are located beneath the skylight.)
View of the northwest corner of The Bay (Men’s Wear, today). The 1930s location of the Dining Room on the 6th Floor. Author’s photo.
The skylight is visible from above in the Google Street View shown below.
A Google view of the exterior The Bay from above (looking from the northeast). The skylight is visible near the top right corner. Google Maps, 2016.
T. Eaton Company (Formerly Spencer’s)
The Marine Room in Eaton’s when it was in Spencer’s former location at West Hastings and Richards. Postcard from author’s collection.
Outlook onto Burrard Inlet and the North Shore from the Marine Room, the dining room of the T. Eaton Company’s flagship store in Vancouver. This was formerly Spencer’s (at the site of today’s Harbour Centre) from 1907-48. Eaton’s took over this location when Spencer’s closed in 1948 and remained here until 1972 when it moved to its final Vancouver location at the corner of Robson and Granville (anchor of Pacific Centre Mall) until 1999.
Elva Selman, a 24-year-old member of First Baptist Church, died in the waters off Second Beach on Friday, August 21, 1908 at around 11am. She was the daughter of Samuel and Clara Selman. Samuel was a realtor in the City at the time of Elva’s death.
Elva apparently was wading in English Bay, using crutches to help her remain upright. She had had surgery about a year earlier (for reasons not explained in the Vancouver Daily World).
The scene of Elva’s death was evidently never treated as anything other than accidental. According to the Daily World:
“Miss Selman was somewhat crippled, and went into the water on crutches. None of the party saw the accident, but it is presumed that she must have lost her balance. Her absence was noticed and a quick search in the water resulted in the body being found within fifteen minutes. It was hoped that life might not be extinct and several men worked willingly for over an hour in a vain attempt [at] resuscitation. Immediately the accident was reported the police patrol, with a doctor, was hurried to the scene, and was later used to convey the body to the family home on Nelson Street.” (Vancouver Daily World, August 21, 1908).
I assume there was no autopsy, since the funeral service was held the next day, on Saturday the 22nd.
Elva’s death happened between senior ministers at FBC. Dr. J. Willard Litch had left FBC a year prior, and it would be almost another year after her passing before H. Francis Perry would take up pastoral duties at First. Her Saturday service was, therefore, led by Rev. P. Clifton Parker (of the long-gone Central Baptist Church, Vancouver at Laurel and 10th) with assistance from veteran B.C. Baptist pastor, Rev. Peter H. McEwen, and another pastor who was in the city to supply the pulpit at First for a couple of Sundays, Rev. T. T. Shields. Albert E. Greenlaw was also on hand to render a solo. Following the service, a special B.C. Electric train car was commissioned (at no small cost to the family, I suspect) to convey mourners from FBC to the graveside at Mountain View Cemetary.
The funeral service on Saturday, however, apparently was not enough. According to the Daily World column from the Monday following, “[t]he Sunday morning service conducted by T. T. Shields and A. E. Greenlaw in the First Baptist Church, took the form of a memorial service to the late Miss Selman, of which church she was a member.”
SGN 1015 – Bathing. English Bay. Vancouver, B.C. 1912? W J Moore. (This looks like a scene not unlike that on the day Elva Selman drowned).
This article appeared in the Vancouver Daily World on August 17, 1908. An intriguing aspect of the piece, to me, was that Shields, who was near the beginning of his career as an Ontario Baptist preacher of note (later, pastor at Jarvis Street Baptist in Toronto, and, ultimately, a leader of the Canadian Baptist fundamentalist movement who would contribute to the mid-1920s strife that would split the denomination), was given much less attention (in terms of column-inches) than the to-me-unknown singer, A. E. Greenlaw, who is described as “one of Canada’s greatest singers”!
Albert E. Greenlaw (circa1880-1953) was an American bass singer who (judging from his many concerts in Baptist churches) was probably of that denominational stripe.
Greenlaw also was a black man. He was apparently an original member of the Nashville-based, African-American group known then (and now) as the Fisk Jubilee Singers (consisting of students at Fisk University).
T. T. Shields
Greenlaw apparently had a pretty busy solo career, post-Fisk, touring in North America; his popularity (and, to some extent, that of Shields) pulled 1,800 people into the Vancouver Opera House a week after this Daily World article appeared. It cannot truly be said that Greenlaw was “one of Canada’s greatest singers”, however; indeed, it seems improbable that Greenlaw cast himself as a ‘Canadian’. By 1925, he was described in the Ottawa Journal as the “well-known bass of Detroit, Michigan”.
I have found an early recording of the Fisk Singers (1909); although Greenlaw would have been long-gone by the time this recording was made, it conveys something of their a cappella musical style. If you are wondering how Greenlaw sounded as a soloist, I suspect that he may have sounded quite similar to the late George Beverly Shea (1909-1913). An example of Bev Shea’s musical style is here.
A remarkable thing about Greenlaw and Shields is how they have almost completely disappeared from the historical ‘radar’ of most Canadians (and, I’d venture to guess, likewise of Americans). Neither is a household name. To borrow from Isaiah 40, reputations and notoriety wither and fade along with grass and flowers.
CVA – Air P73.2: Hoffar H3 Seaplane in Coal Harbour, 1919. (Exposure adjusted by author).
I think this is a terrific shot made by some (today unknown) soul with enough spunk to see the potential of the shot and to just shoot it (in a day when camera technology didn’t often reward such spontaneity)! A pilot appears to be taxiing the Hoffar seaplane into Hoffar Shipyards (1927 W. Georgia Street), which backed onto Coal Harbour, pictured above. (For a decidedly less happy occasion in the career of Hoffar and his shipyards, see this dramatic post).
Hoffar Shipyards (later, Hoffar-Beeching) was ultimately bought by Boeing and became part of Boeing Canada where they built seaplanes and also more conventional seacraft. Boeing maintained the Hoffar site on Georgia Street until World War II when it was moved to a much larger facility at Sea Island.
There is a fact about James Reid Hoffar (1890-1954) of which I wasn’t aware until recently. He was the son of pioneer Vancouver architect, Noble Stonestreet Hoffar (1843-1907) and Sarah Hoffar.
VPL 86489C Parking lot attendant at the corner of Pender and Homer. 1972. Peter Thomas photo.
Peter Thomas is not a photographer with whom I’m familiar. But upon stumbling upon some of his work at VPL’s online historical photos site, recently, I have to say I like his style.
The image above was apparently made at the northwest corner of Pender and Homer, where, roughly from the 1960s until the 1990s, Downtown Parking Corp. (DPC) had a small parking garage. The image is one of four similar photos made by Thomas of the attendant (and a poster showing actor Edward G. Robinson). I like this one best.
The exterior of the attendant’s hut is visible here a couple of years later (in 1974) beneath the wall ad for the Niagara Hotel:
CVA 778-194 – 400 Homer Street west side. May 1974.
In this perspective image (made in the same year), it is clear that the DPC lot wasn’t much of a garage. Two levels, evidently.
CVA 778-193 – 400 Homer Street west side. May 1974. Cropped slightly and exposure adjusted by author.
The parking garage replaced longtime resident of this corner, Ellesmere Rooms.
CVA 1184-699 – [Oldest boarding house in Vancouver, corner of Homer and Pender Streets]. 1943. Jack Lindsay photo. Slightly cropped and exposure adjusted by author.
CVA M-11-62 – A West End home [probably on the 1100 block of Georgia Street] 191- Richard Broadbridge photo. This was the temporary quarters of Langara School for Boys (1913).
The Langara School for Boys was one of two private schools (the second was a school for girls known as Braemar) that were under the authority of Western Residential Schools. Principal McKay (of Westminster Hall) was president of Western Residential Schools and Rev. E. D. McLaren was the superintendent.
The photo above shows the temporary quarters of Langara. The school was at this downtown location on the corner of Bute and Georgia streets, apparently, for the best part of 1913. The principal of the School for Boys at this time was A. R. Tait.
Vancouver Daily World. Ad. 7 August 1915.
Sometime in 1914, the school moved into its permanent quarters which had been under construction during 1913. This new location was located on 15 acres of land “adjoining the Shaughnessy Golf Course between Bodwell [33rd Ave.] and Whitehead [37 Ave.]”. The main building was situated at the corner of what is today 33rd and Heather.
VPL 20311. Langara School for Boys 1917. Dominion photo. This is the ‘permanent location’ of the school at 33rd and Heather.
The ‘permanent’ site of the school proved to be less than stable. By 1917, Langara was asked to shift out of its building so that a military hospital could be established there. Langara would move to Kitsilano to one of the corners at Larch and 2nd Ave. Residency was to be located in a separate building across from the school. I couldn’t find a photograph of the school at its Kitsilano location.
CVA 99-5096 – Patients and Staff – Langara Military Hospital (aka Fairmont Hospital). (Formerly Langara School for Boys). June 1917 Stuart Thomson photo.
By 1920, Western Residential Schools was in the hands of the liquidators and negotiations were underway with the federal government to buy the Fairmont Hospital (formerly Langara school). It isn’t clear to me exactly why Western Residential Schools faced liquidation less than 8 years after establishing the schools. But I would speculate that being moved from their custom-built quarters near the end of the Great War probably didn’t help.
The federal government converted the former Langara property into a Vancouver barracks for the RCMP. The former Braemar would have a wing added to the Shaghnessy Hospital as a training site for Great War veterans (to be known by the awkward bureaucratic title: “Soldiers’ Civil Re-Establishment”.
The RCMP barracks have now moved off the former Langara School site to a location in Surrey. In October 2014, the Heather Lands were acquired by the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh Nations and Canada Lands Company “in an historic joint venture. The agreement will see the joint venture partners working side-by-side with local communities and municipalities to establish new visions for this site.” The former Braemar school for girls site is today Braemar Park at corner of Willow and 27th Avenue.
CVA 1184-2673 – [Man addressing the congregation at a Salvation Army service] 1940-48 Jack Lindsay photo. (VAIW note: The service is being held in the sanctuary of First Baptist Church, Vancouver).
The image above and the two below were taken by photographer, Jack Lindsay, of a Salvation Army service held in the sanctuary of First Baptist Church, Vancouver. According to City of Vancouver archivists, these were made sometime in the period between 1940 and 1948.
There are some points worth noting about these images:
The Salvation Army banner (showing their motto, Blood and Fire) is displayed prominently at the front of the sanctuary, over the baptistry;
There is a man seated on the left of the platform, in the second image, who appears to be wearing a native cloak. The gent wearing the cloak looks to me as though he may have been a native Indian;
There is a large dish on the far left of the second image, in the balcony. This apparently was part of a (temporary/makeshift?) public address system.
All images show a full sanctuary.
I have tried to determine what was the occasion for this Salvation Army service held in First Baptist; so far, without much luck. The contact person at the Salvation Army’s B.C. Division Headquarters in Burnaby speculated that this was “a Congress event where Salvation Army personnel from a geographic area would all gather together for rallying and holiness meetings.”
My theory is that these images were made in 1947 and that the occasion was the Diamond Jubilee of the work of the Salvation Army in B.C. But, for now, this is just a theory.
It should be noted that these three photos were made in First Baptist Church. However, there is another image, in the middle of the series, which was notmade at FBC. This other image looks like it was made in a local theatre. (Apparently, the non-FBC service was held in the Strand (formerly Allen) Theatre on Georgia at Seymour. Thanks for this insight are due to JMV and Tom Carter; see JMV’s comment below).
CVA 1184-2672 – [Choir singing at a Salvation Army Service] 1940-48 Jack Lindsay photo.
CVA 1184-2675 – [Congregation and band at a Salvation Army service] 1940-48 Jack Lindsay photo.
CVA 780-41 – Scene on Helmcken Street. February, 1966. City of Vancouver Planning Dept. (Photographer unknown).
This image is a powerful reminder, to me at any rate, of a Fred Herzog image. I make no claim at all that this is a Herzog photo (it isn’t; it is one taken for the Vancouver Planning Department by a photographer for whom no attribution was attached). But it does have a few elements that remind me of Herzog’s published prints: 1) the mid-20th-century hint of smog in the air (most evident in the background near the BC Electric HQ on Nelson at Burrard); 2) the palate of blues, greens and rusty red; 3) the overall tone of the image that cannot be truly captured by a digital camera (nor with post-processing software); it comes only with images made around the mid-century period with traditionally-processed film.
At the same time, there is a major clue that this wasn’t a photograph made by Herzog. There doesn’t seem to be any artistic point to the photo. What do I mean by ‘artistic point’? This is where things get fuzzy and harder to relate in prose; but I’ll try. A huge part of it is that there are no people in this image (except for the part of a shoulder in the lower right corner). Not all of Herzog’s photos from the 1950s/60s were populated, but I’d guesstimate that at least 70% captured at least one individual that contributed to the ‘story’ of the photograph. For the Herzog images of this period – with and without people (for one without, see Blue Car, Strathcona) – there generally seemed to be a ‘story’ that he wanted to tell about life downtown (or in Vancouver generally) at this time. As with most art, however, the interpretation of that story is left to the viewer.
Although I’ve made the claim that the image above doesn’t have an artistic point, it certainly had a pragmatic point. It was taken by a photographer for the Vancouver Planning Department with a purpose in mind. I’d speculate that the point of this image was to be a ‘record shot’ of the three rooming houses.
Where on Helmcken Street was this image taken? It seems to have been made on the 500-block between Richards and Seymour. The CVA image below claims to be an image of the north side of that block in about 1981. It is remarkable how much remained unchanged between the mid-1960s and the early 1980s. The single-level commercial structure seems still to be present, as are the three rooming houses (by the 1980s, probably, looking worse for wear, although that is less obvious in a black & white image).
CVA 779-E08.28. 500 Helmcken Street north side. 1981. Vancouver Planning Dept Photo (Unknown photographer).
Although the roughly twenty-year period from the 1960s to ’80s left the buildings on this side of the 500-block remarkably unchanged, the subsequent 30 years have been less ‘kind’. The north side of that block has been wholly given over, now, to residential towers.
Helmcken between Seymour and Richards. North side of block. 2016. Author’s photo.
Happily, however, the next block (the 400-block between Richards and Homer) includes a few vintage homes that have been re-done for commercial purposes, but still retain something of the ‘early-Vancouver home’ style.
Helmcken east of Richards. North side of block. 2016. Author’s photo.
The title of this post was inspired by lyrics by Lew Brown (melody by Sammy Fein) of a tune by the same name. For the record, I prefer Diana Krall’s rendition to that of Sinatra (who had a hit with this song in 1960).
CVA 1495-33 – David Spencer’s Ltd. employees and unidentified man during gasoline strike of April 1940.
The week-long, so-called ‘gasoline strike’ of April 1940 should probably more accurately be called an embargo or boycott. This wasn’t a withdrawal of labour, thus inconveniencing management and pressuring the latter to negotiate with labour’s trade union representatives (the common meaning of ‘strike’). Rather, this was an act of the oil companies of the day to pressure consumers to bring pressure to bear on their elected representatives. This episode had that effect, but probably not quite as the oil companies had in mind.
With a former base price at Vancouver of 27 cents an imperial gallon for ‘regular’ grade gasoline… retail prices in interior parts are in most cases 35 cents, and sometimes in excess of 45 cents. In the smaller towns retail margins are usually 7 cents and frequently more. Such spreads are not always a reflection on high retailing costs, however, but of collusion between a handful of dealers who know that the next settlement is 80 miles away. (Enke’s article from Quarterly Journal of Economics, May 1941 and quoted in Bladen)
The province of B.C. appointed a Coal and Petroleum Products Control Board in 1938; the Board issued an order fixing the retail price of gas.
That ‘tore it’ as far as Big Oil was concerned; an injunction was sought and a legal tussle was begun. The Supreme Court of Canada, in April 1940, ruled that the province was able to establish the Control Board.
Having failed to defeat the legislation in the courts, the oil companies decided to “strike”. On April 26, they agreed to furnish no gasoline to dealers in British Columbia. Stocks quickly ran out. (Bladen)
B.C. Premier, Duff Pattullo’s government took a surprisingly tough and activist stance vis-a-vis the oil companies. The Assembly amended the Act to allow the Province to
take over existing plants in the event of another emergency. Amendment after amendment proposed by opposition ranks went down to defeat as division after division revealed the government and C.C.F. members voting together against Conservative and individual Liberal support. (Chilliwack Progress, May 15, 1940)
A compromise agreement was reached between Big Oil and the Control Board. In most regions of the province, the consumer would enjoy a two-cent per gallon cut in gas prices. The retail dealers and wholesale distributors would each be expected to eat 1 cent of this cut.
The Gasoline ‘Strike’ of 1940 was over.
It isn’t clear to me whether the amended B.C. Act was ever proclaimed into law. It seems to me that it would have been vulnerable to legal challenge. The Supreme Court of Canada was not, until 1949, the highest court of appeal. At this time, the oil companies could have sought leave to appeal to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in the U.K.
CVA 1184-2072 John Charles Thomas signing a drum while group of people watch in music store. Jack Lindsay photo. 1940-48? (Probably 1946).
Who is the apparent rock star above? A fellow who, in his day, was a household word: American opera baritone, John Charles Thomas. Today, his vocal stylings are not quite forgotten (although his name is all but so); his English rendering of Johann Strauss’s “Open Road, Open Sky” was used in Audi’s 2011 advertisement for its A6 Avant automobile (featuring robotic bird animation). In the image above, he appears to be in Kellys Appliances shop (Georgia at Seymour). Thomas was well known and appreciated by Vancouver music lovers; most notably, he drew some 15,000 to an outdoor concert at Stanley Park’s Malkin Bowl in 1939. I cannot imagine a crowd of that size at the Bowl!
August 4/16 Update:
Here is a shot I recently stumbled across on CVA that cracks me up. It shows John Charles in his pinstripes mugging as though he had something to do with the construction of the Brockton Point grandstand being built for Vancouver’s Diamond Jubliee at the time (1946).
CVA St Pk N105 – John Charles Thomas during the stage and stands construction for Vancouver’s Diamond Jubilee celebration at Brockton Point. 1946.
And here is another chuckle: John Charles in full costume as Captain Geo. Vancouver (and an unknown young Vancouver resident, I presume). As I recall, the Diamond Jubilee pageant was organized by an American who didn’t take Vancouver’s tendency to dampness into account. The pageant was not the roaring success that had been hoped for, as a result.
CVA St Pk N103 – John Charles Thomas playing Captain George Vancouver at a pageant to celebrate Vancouver’s Diamond Jubilee at Brockton Point. 1946.
These two images are, in my judgement, outstanding examples of pictorial photography (or camera work as art). Both were made by Vancouver photographers: Harold Mortimer-Lamb was an amateur; John Vanderpant a professional. But when looking at these two lovely images, such labels become irrelevant. They speak only to how a person earns their daily bread, rather than to skill or compositional eye.
The first photograph reminds me of the former Britannia Mines, but I have no way of knowing whether that was where the image was made. The second, I’m pretty sure, was made in the City of Vancouver.
August 3rd, 2016 Update
I’ve just noticed an image made by Leonard Frank in the same year as Harold Mortimer-Lamb (from what appears to be an identical vantage point – although with Frank’s quite different, ‘sharp and shiny’/f64, photographic take on it). The photo is identified as Premier Mine (near Stewart, Portland Canal, BC). This is a much more distant and remote location from Vancouver than is Britannia Mine. For more information about the Premier Mine, see here.
Premier Mine near Portland Canal, BC 1927. Leonard Frank photo. From An Enterprising Life: Leonard Frank Photographs 1895-1944. Cyril E. Leonoff. Vancouver: Talon Books, 1990, p. 120.
When I first ran across this image in the City of Vancouver Archive online images, I was inclined to be scornful. Until I remembered some of the ads I’ve seen in recent years for so-called ‘body sculpting solutions’ and a wide variety of other ‘cures’ for a couple surplus cookies. Vanity of vanities.
Darlyne Slenderizing Glamour Salon was located at 1009 Nelson – adjacent to First Baptist Church (where FBC’s parking lot is today).
A scan of a Stuart Thomson print showing what appears to be a restaurant/lounge space. n.d. Author’s image.
I recently purchased the print from which the above scan was produced. It was made by one of my favourite early Vancouver professional photographers, Stuart Thomson. The photo seems to have been taken in a commercial food/drink establishment, somewhere in Vancouver I’m assuming. There is no year on the print, but I’m guessing it was a fairly early Thomson image, made in the 1920s, perhaps.
After buying the print, I did quite a lot of hunting for a similar image. I didn’t have much success.
The closest I came in my search was the interior shot shown below of the Peter Pan Cafe also made by Thomson (in 1929). I thought the space shown in my print might have been an earlier incarnation of the Peter Pan at 1138 Granville Street.
VPL 8927 Interior of Peter Pan Cafe (1138 Granville St). 1929. Stuart Thomson photo.
This image has some features in common with the space shown in my print, but there are a number of differences, too (not least, that the space in the print appears to be wider than in the Peter Pan). At the end of the day, however, I eliminated the Peter Pan space as a possible contender by the fact that there is no evidence that it was ever a restaurant prior to it becoming the Peter Pan.*
Researchers tend to be optimistic. I continue to hope that I or someone else will eventually find a matching photo and/or some other clinching piece of evidence as to the location of the Thomson print. Perhaps not this month or this year. But eventually.
If it turns out that you figure out the location of the image, I’d appreciate hearing from you!
Notes
*B.C. Electric and Vancouver Gas Co. appear to have been occupants of the space for several years prior to it becoming the Peter Pan Cafe.
**It is called Opening Doors: Vancouver’s East End. Part of the Sound Heritage series (Vol VIII, Nos. 1 & 2). n.d. (c1980).
CVA Port P1449.2 – [Frank Hart speaking to other pioneers gathered for the Maple Tree Monument unveiling on the southwest corner of Carrall Street and Water Street]. Including 1. Frank W Hart (c1857-1935), 2. Charles Gardner Johnson (c1855-1928), 3. Kalman Silverman (c1857-1926), and 4. Peter Larson (c1859-1934). (I cannot find any source that identifies the gent with the long beard at far left; he appears also in the final image in this post – likewise unidentified). Image made 1925.
The photo was made to commemorate the Maple Tree Monument at the corner of Carrall and Water streets. The monument was created by prolific Vancouver sculptor, Charles Marega, originally as part of a drinking fountain in 1925. In 1986, with the establishment of the sculpture of “Gassy” Jack Deighton (artist, Vern Simpson, working from a drawing by Fritz Jacobson), the monument was incorporated into it instead. It isn’t clear to me when exactly the drinking fountain was removed from the site, but probably during the renovations to the Maple Tree Square/Trounce Alley section of Gastown in the early 1970s.
The gent who is apparently haranguing his fellow Vancouver Pioneers from atop the chair is Frank W. Hart. I suspect this was a bit of fun, staged for the camera. But it was probably not wholly outside of his personality to give others their marching orders; he was a funeral director/embalmer.* I expect he was used to getting his way and having his say; his customers couldn’t talk back!
Mon P77.2 – [Charles Marega unveils Maple Tree Memorial]. 1925. Stuart Thomson photo. It appears to be Pete Larson (Prop., Hotel North Vancouver) on the far left of the photo.
A larger gathering of the pioneers present for the unveiling of the drinking fountain monument in 1925 appears below.
Port P1449.1 – [Pioneers gathered for the Maple Tree Monument unveiling on the southwest corner of Carrall Street and Water Street]. 1925. Selected individuals are identified by CVA (the occupation of each person has been added by the author): 1. John S.Rankin (Accountant, Customs Broker, Commission Merchant); 2. Captain E. S. Scoullar (Tinsmith); 3. Unidentified; 4. Unidentified; 5. Peter Righter(Engineer, CPR); 6. “Pete” Giles Shenston (Occ. Unknown); 7. Mrs. Carson (Delegate, Council of Women); 8. Mrs. Emily Eldon (Widow of Harry Eldon, former Parks Commissioner); 9. Mrs. J. W. McFarland; 10. J. W. McFarland (Mgr, Real Estate Dept., Ceperley Rounsefell); 11. Andy Linton (Boatbuilder); 12. Kelman Silverman (Pawnbroker); 13. Captain C. H. Cates (Master Mariner); 14. George Munro (Railway Builder); 15. W. S. Cook (Dealer in Lime, Sand, Brick and Soil); 16. Pete Larson (Prop., Hotel North Vancouver); 17. Harry Hoffmeister (Automobile Dealer).
Note
*Hart was also the owner of Hart’s Opera House located on Carrall St. It had the distinction of being the first opera house in the city, but by all accounts there was substantially less to see, architecturally, than the name suggested.
CVA 99-29-15 – [Bowmac sign at 1154 West Broadway, Vancouver, B.C.]. Sketch by Barbara Elizabeth Wilson 1982-83.
The 80-foot Bow-Mac sign at 1154 West Broadway, has been a landmark in the neighbourhood since it was erected in 1958.
There were a couple of aspects about Bow-Mac’s history of which I wasn’t aware until today: (1) the lot was originally called the ‘Bow-Mac (Used Car) Supermarket’; and (2) that it was the used automobile lot associated with Bowell-McDonald (later, Bowell-McLean) Pontiac, Cadillac, and Buick (and, later, Vauxhall) new auto lot located at 615 Burrard Street (roughly where the Burrard Skytrain Station is located today).
For more info pertaining to the sign, this page is pretty detailed.
Crop of CVA 586-2130 – Victory Loan parade [on Burrard Street], 1942. Bowell-McDonald new car lot on Burrard Street appears on the left of the image.
Correspondence written June 19, 1911 by Starr J. Murphy (Attorney to John D. Rockefeller) to Dr. Lachlan N. MacKechnie of First Baptist Church, Vancouver. Source: FBC Vancouver Archives.
This letter was written by John D. Rockefeller’s attorney, Starr J. Murphy (1860-1921), in response to a now-lost letter sent by Dr. L. N. MacKechnie (1864-1926) of First Baptist Church (Vancouver). It seems reasonable to conclude from the context that the letter from FBC was a plea for financial support from Rockefeller (1839-1937), to which Murphy replied in the negative on JDR’s behalf.
Rockefeller, the founder of Standard Oil, was a noted philanthropist and well-known Baptist. He attended and supported (in both deeds and dollars, apparently) Erie Street Baptist Mission Church (later known as Euclid Avenue Baptist Church) in Cleveland.
MacKechnie was a major mover and shaker at FBC in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and was prominent in the building of FBC’s current structure at Burrard and Nelson streets.
In June 1911, First Baptist was on the verge of moving into their brand new ‘fortress’ church at the corner of Burrard & Nelson (the dedication service was on June 9, 1911). Exact figures are hard to come by, but there is no question that the new church building had set the congregation back by an unanticipated amount. So much so that the FBC ‘powers that were’ had been in contact with the architects (Burke Horwood & White) and Heard (of Matheson & Heard, general contractors) about getting them to reduce their charges, which were in excess of the original estimates. Burke, apparently, was prepared to accommodate FBC. But Heard was more uncompromising. According to a minute from March 28, 1911, a committee had had “several interviews” with Heard “regarding the suggestion made by the Committee, that in view of the excessive cost of the buildings over the estimates, particularly the Contracts under Mr Heard’s charge, some reduction might be made in Heard’s charges by the way of commission or otherwise.” According to the minute, Heard was prepared to make “some reduction”, but not nearly enough to satisfy the committee: $100.
MacKechnie, who appears to have been the de facto chairman of the church board at this time, must have been at his wits end and in desperation thought to invite the richest Baptist of the day to make a donation to FBC’s financial mess. There is no mention in any FBC minutes that I’ve been able to unearth of the church instructing MacKechnie to approach JDR.
A few years subsequent to the Murphy/MacKechnie communication, JDR would give $10,000 to the Western Canadian denominational regional body (the Baptist Union) to support missions work in the area.*
The Baptist Union of Western Canada: A Centennial History 1873-1973. J. E. Harris, p. 148. The photo shows Florence Pletch [correct spelling of her name: Pletsch)* at 1492 West 33rd, the home donated by Mrs. F.R. Stewart to the Canadian Baptists. Photographer unknown.
In 1953, a member of First Baptist Church, Mrs. Francis Stewart, moved out of her home in Shaughnessy district at 1492 West 33rd Avenue (at Granville) and donated it to the Baptist overseas mission board.
The home was used as the Vancouver Missionary Furlough Home for missionaries who were taking a break from service abroad. According to the history of the regional Baptist body, written by J. E. Harris, the home “served that purpose well for several years. Then, due to traffic increase on Granville, the house was sold and the money used to buy a duplex in a quiet area” at 2337 W. 10th Ave., which was used as the Mission Home going forward. (Harris, p. 134).
It isn’t clear to me just how long this real estate service was provided by the denomination to its missionaries. But it appears to have lasted through the 1970s for sure, and quite possibly into the ’80s.
The original Mission House seems to be extant. It is difficult to get an image of it from street level, though, due to the tall hedge that surrounds it. However, on Google, one can see the house from above, and it appears to be the same structure. The more recent house on W. 10th is decidedly not extant, being recently replaced with a new duplex structure.
Notes
*Florence Pletsch died in Revelstoke in 2008 at age 86. She grew up in Calgary and trained as a nurse, later serving as a missionary nurse in India for Canadian Baptists for over 40 years. (Obituary, Calgary Herald, September 2008).
Sources: I’m indebted to Linda Zlotnik, Phyllis Metcalfe, and Nancy Scambler, in addition to the above-mentioned volume by J. E. Harris, for information and memories pertaining to the Baptist Mission Houses.
Camera Craft. May 1923. p243. (VAIW note: John Vanderpant’s name is misspelled in the caption).
Camera Craft was a long-running monthly periodical published by the Photographers’ Association of California which (thanks to Internet Archive) is easily accessed today. There are interesting articles of enduring interest to a camera-savvy readership. But our attention here will focus on a few mentions made of the Vancouver/New Westminster branch of the association in the 1920s.
The photo above puts faces to the names of some of the photographers featured in VanAsItWas. W. H. Calder is one, so is George T. Wadds and W. J. Moore. Some of the gents in the photo above have not, up to now, appeared in VAIW. Why? Most of those whose work isn’t included in VAIW were principally studio photographers (e.g., Chapman, Bridgman, Rowe, and McKenzie) and this blog tends not to show many studio images (street photography is my emphasis). John Vanderpant was a landscape and a studio photographer, but unfortunately none of his landscape work is included among the City of Vancouver Archives or VPL Historical Photos collections.
There are a number of prominent photographers who were active in the 1920s who were not on the executive committee of the V&NWPA (locally/informally known, I believe, as the Vancouver Camera Club). Stuart Thomson and Leonard Frank leap to mind as two examples. It could be that they were members of the club but not on the executive. Or they may have been too busy making their careers at the time (for Thomson, the 1920s were certainly his most prolific decade).
In a 1927 issue, the following list of photographic sub-genres appeared in a Camera Craft description of a Vancouver area show of photographs:
[It] occupied two spacious floors with its 2500 prints. These came from twenty-three countries besides the local contributions and comprised a variety of branches of the art and the craft: aerial, criminal investigation, finger prints, astronomical, pathological, X-ray and the usual portraiture and commercial work. (Camera Work, December 1927, 596)
In addition to the ‘branches’ mentioned – a couple of which tried my imagination – please note one category which got no mention at all in this list: street photography.
Camera Craft, Dec 1925, p587. “Too Early on the Job”. John Helders photo.
Helga Pakasaar, in her article titled “Formulas for the Picturesque: Vancouver Pictorialist Photography 1930-45” says:
Vancouver photographers saw the work of Edward Weston and Imogene Cunningham at the Vanderpant Galleries [at 1216 Robson] in 1931 and followed the ‘great debate’ in the pages of Camera Craft where the ‘fuzzy wuzzies’ railed against the “sharp and shinies” in an extended dialogue that lasted from 1934 to 1941. Vancouver photographers… participated in these discussions through their involvement in the the journals and the exhibitions. (Pakasaar, Vancouver: Art and Artists 1931-1983, Vancouver Art Gallery, 49).
John Helders (1888-1956) was a Vancouver amateur photographer. His image above of workers waiting for their work day to begin, seems to be evidence that Helders was of the ‘fuzzy wuzzy’ school. For a Camera Craft image from a Vancouver photographer that is a bit closer to the ‘sharp and shiny’ (aka f64) category, see this one by Hugh Frith.
Camera Craft. May 1926, p242. This photo, made for Camera Craft by an unknown photographer, was taken at the annual banquet and dance of the V&NWPA, “held at Princess Cafe”. (VAIW note: I think the location was actually Prince’s Cafe – located at 560 Granville).
CVA 99-2008 – Visit of Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester, polo game. 1929 Stuart Thomson photo. (VAIW note: Henry appears to be closest to the photographer).*
87 years ago this month, Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester,** came to Vancouver for a few days of R & R (or, rather, G & P . . . Golf and Polo) before a planned itinerary that was to include a stop (among others) near High River, Alberta at the Prince of Wales Ranch and points east of there.
As it turned out, the Prince ended up spending most of his visit in Vancouver. And nearly all of his time here was spent in his suite in the Hotel Vancouver. In bed. Convalescing.
He fell from his polo mount onto his head and fractured his collarbone. That happened on June 4. According to press accounts, he left Vancouver to return home to Britain on June 27. His Canadian tour (with the exception of a couple of days in Victoria before arriving in Vancouver aboard the Princess Mary) was a washout due to the polo incident.
Journalists of the day were remarkably discreet on the question of how, precisely, Henry came to be off his horse and wrong-end-up. Even several years after the Princely Tumble, one press account blamed the Prince’s horse, not the rider: “The pony slipped.”***
Prince Henry was in Vancouver for all of 5 hours before his fall. There was, evidently, no opportunity for a round of golf.
The prince’s polo match took place at the Vancouver Polo Club which was located, at the time, at Brighouse Park in Richmond.
CVA 99-2638 – Building at Brighouse Horse Racing Track. 1929. Stuart Thomson photo.
Notes
*All of CVA’s Stuart Thomson images of Prince Henry at the Vancouver Polo Club may be seen here.
**Prince Henry was the third son of King George V and Queen Mary; he was a great-grandson of Queen Victoria. Henry married Lady Alice Montagu-Douglas-Scott (later, Princess Alice) in 1935. He was Governor-General of Australia from 1945-47. He died in 1974.
Real estate in Vancouver is at a premium. That is a truism. It has nearly always been the case in this city. Sure, there have been periodic and relatively short-lived dips. But only rarely has the real estate market here been seriously “off”.
If we accept that as valid, why are there some lots that seem to be chronically undeveloped (or nearly so)? Here are three that I can think of in the downtown area off the top of my head: the NW corner of Robson at Broughton (vacant for at least 50+ years; the North side of Hastings, just west of Hamilton (vacant from the late 1990s); and the lot near the NE corner of West Pender and Cambie (vacant since the 1950s, as far as I can tell).
Why?
I’m going to look at the last address in a bit of detail. I can find only one photograph in the City of Vancouver Archives or the VPL Historical Photos collection where there is a building on the lot in question (the lot is between what today is known as Architecture Centre – on the corner of Cambie and Pender – and the SRO known today as the Avalon). It is the building shown in the image below. The building number in this decade was 181 W Pender. (The street numbering along this stretch changed a bit: the number of the building – or the vacancy where there should have been one – was 189 in the 1920s).
VPL 80604A A T Rowell’s Used Magazines store now vacant 181 W Pender 1948 Art Jones photo.
Here is the lot in 1910:
VPL 13676. Looking north at 100 Block West Pender. 1910 Robert Broadbridge photo.
Adjacent to the lot on the left is the Vancouver News-Advertiser building (which would later be occupied by the Province). To the right of the lot (east) is Avalon Rooms.
And here it is in 1981:
CVA 779-E16.12 – 100 West Pender Street north side.1981. (VAIW Note: The empty lot in question is the one adjacent (to the east of) what today is known as the Architecture Centre – the 3-storey structure at the corner of Cambie and West Pender.
Nothing much has changed between 1981 and 2016 with respect to the vacant lot. It’s still empty. (Note: A narrow residential space has gone up adjacent to the Avalon since the 1910 image was made and that is still there today; it seems to have become part of the Avalon property; it is the lot to the west of there that remains vacant).
I don’t know what to make of lots like this one. They are islands of non-development amid a vast sea of lots which (if we listen to our civic officials) must not only be developed, but re-developed to appease the great idol known as Densification.
If, as Conan Doyle’s fictional detective is reputed to have maintained, once everything else is eliminated as a possible explanation, whatever remains must be true. . . then perhaps my ‘alien’ headline isn’t completely goofy!
CVA: Str P221 – [A horse-drawn lumber wagon at the corner of Hastings Street and Cambie Street]. 1888. Photographer not shown. CVA’s record indicates “Donated by Mr. and Mrs. William Blais in 1944 from the collection of Dr. A.M. Robertson” (the city’s first medical officer of public health).
This is one of my favourite early photographs of Vancouver, the condition of the negative, notwithstanding. I love it for the usual reason for love . . . just because! But also for compositional and historical reasons.
It seems to me all but certain that this was professionally produced, although there is no credit associated with the image as it has come down to us today. The image bears the compositional marks of a professional hand, in my opinion. The lumberman standing atop the cut lumber on the wagon is balanced by the young lad (his son, perhaps?) standing next to the rear of the wagon. Also, the angle at which the wagon is positioned – this is not a normal or natural way to ‘park’ a wagon. In my opinion, the vehicle was posed. It was arranged by the photographer so that the lumber in all of its amazing length was clearly visible, along with the horses and the two human figures.
If I were pressed to name a photo company that seems to me to be the producer of this image, I’d speculate that it was J. D. Hall of the Vancouver branch of the Vancouver Photo Co. Hall would have been in Vancouver for about a year by the time this image was made and his office was just a couple blocks away on Cordova Street.
In addition to the compositional strength of the image, I also love it for what the photo points to historically, today, about a crossing of streets which would become of some importance to the city over the decades ahead and into the 21st century. The four corners of Hastings at Cambie tell different stories. I will highlight just a few of them below:
SW: To the left of the heads of the horses, is what today is (the un-square-like) Victory Square (1924), where the Cenotaph is located. At the time this image was made (1888), however, the first Provincial Courthouse was either under construction or would be very soon on this site. It wouldn’t last long, being torn down ca 1911; it would be an empty lot until Victory Square was established following the Great War (with a notable exception; in the 19-teens, the site served as the home for significant Christian evangelistic meetings). The courthouse would move to the site of today’s Vancouver Art Gallery (at Georgia and Hornby). Some of the buildings visible behind the heads of the horses would give way within the next decade to the Inns of Court building (1894) at the SW corner of Hamilton and Hastings and where the “Hamilton plaque” once was. The plaque commemorated where the CPR’s first land commissioner in Vancouver, L.A. Hamilton, first pounded a stake into the earth and laid out a significant proportion of the streets which are part of Vancouver today.
SE: The corner that the horses are facing is the one where the Vancouver News-Advertiser offices once were and which was HQ for a great part of the 20th century to Vancouver’s print journalism offices. Today, the building on that corner is the Architecture Centre (home to the Architectural Institute of B.C.). The building that would have been on the site at the time of this photo, however, was a wood-frame structure.
NE: To the right of the wagon, by 1900, would be another architectural landmark: the Flack block (William Blackmore, architect). This building had a substantial, but historically sensitive, re-do in 2008 by Donald Luxton.
NW: And, finally, behind the wagon would be, from ca 1895-1910, a shopping mall of sorts. Not by contemporary standards, perhaps, but the Arcade was an early version; it housed 13 shops. By 1910, the “tallest building in the British Empire” (as it would briefly be known), would replace the Arcade. It is the Dominion building and stands there today.
VPL 7878. View of the Reconstruction Party Headquarters in the Western Canada Building, 416 W. Pender, with advertising for H.H. Stevens “for Premier”. 1935 Leonard Frank photo.
This is a view of the south side of the 400-block of W. Pender St. as it was during the 1935 federal election campaign (the vote was held on October 14). This shows the HQ of the Reconstruction Party, a new party that was formed and led by H. H. Stevens, who split with the Conservative Party and is leader, R. B. Bennett, earlier that year. The creation of the party was not given much thought (nor, I might add, was the party’s motto, which seems to me to be incomprehensible). In fact, it might be argued that the party’s creation was a result of a fit of pique (mixed with vanity*) because Prime Minister Bennett (his leader) hadn’t implemented recommendations he made while chairman of the Price Spreads Commission.
Only one Reconstruction MP was elected: Stevens (Kootenay East). J. Patrick Boyer makes passing reference to him in The Big Blue Machine (2015), describing his sole accomplishment in the 1935 election being “to draw away enough Tory votes in 1935 to help the Liberals [under William Lyon Mackenzie King] defeat the Conservatives.” That is probably true.
The 1935 election came at the depths of the Great Depression and, in addition to the Liberal and Conservative parties, three new parties were seeking to elect MPs to the House of Commons (Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, Social Credit, and Reconstruction). This was the first election for all of these parties; none had been in existence during the 1930 election, and the Reconstruction Party would never field candidates in another one. CCF edged out Reconstruction in terms of the popular vote (410,125 vs. 384,462), but CCF won 7 seats as compared with the single seat won by Stevens for Reconstruction.** Stevens crossed the floor back to his Conservative brethren in 1938 – to a less-than-enthusiastic partisan ’embrace’. H. H. Stevens died in 1973 at 94.
The sign in the image says “Stevens for Premier.” He never ran at the provincial level (which is typically the meaning associated with “premier” today; usage was less hard and fast at that time, apparently – it could refer to the leader of the governing party at either the federal or provincial level).
The Reconstruction Party HQ was at 416 West Pender. The commercial space adjacent to it, at 418 W. Pender, was a branch office of A. H. Timms, Printer. AHT was the brother of Philip T. Timms, a remarkable early photographer of Vancouver.
The Western Canada block is extant. MacLeod’s Books has its (substantial, to put it mildly) collection of surplus volumes in the space once occupied by the Reconstruction Party.
Notes
*Vanity? In a politician? Unheard of!
**My good friend and practicing Canadian Political Scientist, Stephen, has pointed out that while Canada’s first-past-the-post electoral system ‘short-changed’ Reconstruction vis-a-vis CCF, it’s also true that the SoCreds were unduly rewarded in seats with respect to both CCF and Reconstruction. Social Credit won fewer votes than either of the other two parties (garnering only 180,679 votes across the country), but it won disproportionately more seats in the Commons (17 seats for SoCreds vs. 7 for CCF and just 1 for Reconstruction).
The first of two snapshots “tipped in” on a blank sheet of looseleaf paper inside Cecil Akrigg’s copy (now mine) of the souvenir brochure published on the occasion of the opening of the Lion’s Gate Bridge in 1939. In this photo, the bridge construction appears to be almost complete. However, this image was evidently made prior to installation of Charles Marega‘s lions. ca 1939. Akrigg or Lowe photo.
This is the second (and more vertigo-inducing) snapshot inside the Lion’s Gate Bridge brochure. ca 1939. Akrigg or Lowe photo. (Note: Both photos were a little over-exposed; I’ve tweaked the exposure of each for maximum clarity).
This sentence with the signatures of Akrigg and Lowe appear beneath the snapshots in Akrigg’s former copy of the brochure.
Cecil Akrigg and Stan Lowe were in their 20s when they made these images to remember their adventures in and around the Lion’s Gate Bridge ca 1939.
No mention is made as to whether their climb up the bridge tower (of just under 480 feet) was authorized by the powers that be, but it seems to me very doubtful! In adulthood, both men would have careers that were solidly respectable: Akrigg would become the Registrar of the Supreme Court of B.C.; Lowe would be an accountant.
Akrigg’s wife, Kathleen, died from cancer in 1983. Stan Lowe, who was Kathleen’s brother, also died from cancer two years later.
About a month prior to the publication of this post, Cecil Akrigg’s wartime story* and his wife’s battle with cancer were written up by the BC Cancer Foundation as part of their Leave a Legacy campaign. Akrigg, 99, has left his life insurance to the Foundation. No mention was made in the Foundation write-up of Akrigg’s and Lowe’s adventurous ascent of the Lion’s Gate Bridge, however!
I purchased the Lion’s Gate Bridge brochure from an antiquarian bookseller a few years ago.
CVA 1376-247 – [Fraser Boathouse, west of Kitsilano Pool]. According to CVA notes, the image shows Claude Lowe and his son, Stan. 1938. Cecil N. Akrigg photo.
Tower Diagram 1938. This was included with my copy of the brochure. It was published much more recently, however. Produced as a fundraiser for Theatre Under The Stars. Portfolio Printsellers 1994.
Notes
*There is a recording of Akrigg recounting in a bit more detail some of his wartime experience at The Memory Project.
CVA 99-3465 – Dr. [Trevellyn] Sleeth’s [Veterinary] Hospital [688 Seymour Street] – Operation on Dog. 1923. Stuart Thomson photo. (VAIW Notes: There are at least two errors with the CVA record and two potential misdirections: “Trevelyn” is the correct spelling of Dr. Sleeth’s first name; the correct address of the hospital from 1914-1924 was 690 Seymour; the person treating the dog probably should be identified as one of Sleeth’s staff to prevent confusion; finally, it doesn’t look to me as though there is an “operation” underway – looks more like the dog’s paw is being disinfected or perhaps is having a dressing changed.)
Dr. Trevelyn Elston Sleeth (1890-1987) first showed up in Vancouver as the proprietor of B. C. Dog and Cat Clinic in 1914 (in his first year in the business, however, the hospital was called the “Canine and Feline Hospital”; perhaps too many potential clients didn’t know the meanings of those words). Sleeth had his first hospital near the NE corner of Seymour and Georgia, until just a few years before the Hudson’s Bay Co. would entirely re-do that side of the block to create their huge parking garage. He left Seymour in 1924 and seemed to have difficulty for a few years finding a new location for the hospital. Finally, though, he found a central location that stuck for awhile: the south end of Granville street just before crossing Granville Bridge.
VPL 5426A B.C. Veterinary Hospital (VAIW Note: Presumably, Dr. Sleeth is the middle figure). 1928. 1327/1329 Granville St. Leonard Frank photo.
The hospital remained on Granville at least until 1945. Shortly after, he seems to have concluded that the days at that site were numbered, as the Animal Hospital would need to give way to construction of the new (current) Granville Bridge. He moved his hospital out to Burnaby, the city in which he resided. He had a business already established there (from the 1920s) – Kingsway Boarding Kennels – to which he appears to have added the Vet Hospital around this time, moving it out of the City of Vancouver altogether. The Burnaby kennels/hospital site was located roughly in the Royal Oak area of Burnaby (with Burnaby’s renumbering along Kingsway, it would today be located at 5414 Kingsway). In the 1960’s, Sleeth apparently also had a clinic on Hastings and Willingdon and another one in the Whalley district of Surrey. He retired from veterinary practice in the late 1960s.
156-005. Burnaby Historical Society Community Archives Collection. Kingsway Boarding Kennels. 1925. Today, the site of the kennels would be at 5414 Kingsway.
Sleeth was born in Toronto and did his veterinary training at Ontario Veterinary College (OVC), which later became a founding college of Guelph University. He married Isabelle Grace Petrie after arriving in Vancouver in 1914. They had six daughters together, Phyllis, Pauline, Barbara, and Dorothy (two died at or near birth). Isabelle and Trevelyn were later divorced and he later married again (Olive). Isabelle seems not to have remarried and kept Sleeth’s surname until her death in 1967.
Dr. Sleeth spent the 1970s raising thoroughbred horses at the Surrey end of the Port Mann Bridge. He lived until he was 97.
Mayor Tom “Terrific” Campbell (1927-2012) captured by Vancouver Sun.
Vancouver’s 31st mayor (1967-72), Tom Campbell, was a pro-development, shoot-from-the-lip civic leader.
Campbell is best known to Vancouver heritage advocates and to the communities of Chinatown and Strathcona, as one of the most vocal proponents of the proposed downtown freeway system. Fortunately, community groups prevented Campbell (and others who favoured the freeway) from succeeding beyond the initial stage of that plan – the replacement of the old Georgia (McHarg) Viaduct with the Georgia/Dunsmuir Viaducts (which resulted in the near-total destruction of the predominantly black community of Hogan’s Alley).
In November 1967, a public meeting was called by City Council on the proposed freeway (evidently, Campbell wasn’t able to muster the votes necessary to prevent Council from taking that action).
Campbell responded publicly that the meeting would be “a public disgrace” and “a tempest in a Chinese teapot”.*
“The only purpose of the meeting is so that some politicians at city hall can appease people,”he said.
Campbell said, in response: “Do we have to hire a playhouse to put on a puppet show for objectors? All we’ll hear from are a few groups with vested interests who oppose the freeway.”
CC-PH-00416. Dr. Charlie S. Price evangelist campaign, Vancouver, B.C. May 1923. Chung Collection. UBC Library Rare Books and Special Collections. Yucho Chow photo. Note: Mrs. R.’s “she-devil”, Miss Carvell, is second from left in front row. Price is just to the right of Cavell.
For three weeks in May 1923, Rev. Charles S. Price (1887-1947) held daily (and often twice daily) evangelistic meetings and faith healing services in Vancouver. Price had been in Victoria for several days in April 1923 before coming to Vancouver. According to one source, one-sixth of Victoria’s population went to hear Price speak at Willows Arena at Oak Bay. Price held meetings in Victoria’s Chinatown, too, and many Chinese-Canadians went forward at his altar calls.
In Vancouver, the Price meetings were held at the Denman Arena, which could seat up to 10,000. Frank Patrick, owner of the Arena had this to say about the Price crowd: “[T]he evangelistic party addressed over a quarter of a million people in the space of three weeks. On more than one occasion, I could feel the very building tremble with the singing of the multitude who were unable to wait for the opening hymn.”
Ministers of Vancouver were more divided than had been the ministers in Victoria on the work of Charles Price and his claim to anoint people with miraculous physical healing. A number of Chinese pastors from Victoria came to Vancouver to lend moral support to Price in light of the less-than-overwhelming support of the Vancouver ministerial.
Price Before B.C.
Charles Sydney Price was born in 1887 in England*. Following completion of high school, he served in the British Navy for a couple of years and attended Wesley College and ultimately Oxford where he studied law. (Note: There is no evidence that the “Dr.” which he regularly used with his name was academically earned. Either it came from him being awarded an honorary doctorate, or it was tacked onto Price’s name by him as a way to seem more learned than in fact he was). In 1906, Price left England for Canada. He sought work with law firms in Quebec and Winnipeg, but to no avail. In 1907, he left Canada for Spokane. Shortly after arriving there, he came upon an evangelistic service at the Free Methodist “Life Line Mission”. He was converted there and took up a career in the Methodist church ministry.
Price drifted into the Christian ‘liberal’ movement known as modernism. “He quickly began to reason away his previous salvation experience, and his minstry from that point would be marked by the absence of altar calls and salvations for several years” (Enloe, 7). He pastored a number of Methodist churches in Washington and later was pastor of even more liberal Congregational churches in Alaska and California.
In 1921, he was pastoring First Congregational Church in Lodi, CA. He was told of revival meetings that would be happening at San Jose, led by Aimee Semple McPherson, which would include “divine healing”. He was determined to attend the meetings with the intention of debunking them from his pulpit. Instead of collecting evidence to condemn the McPherson meetings, however, Price was ‘converted’ to the ‘full Gospel’ of pentecostalism, with its attendant features of anointing with oil, faith healing, and speaking in tongues.
In 1922, Price accepted an invitation from McPherson to travel with her evangelistic troupe. In autumn of that year, representatives of some Ashland, OR churches invited “Sister Aimee” to lead revival meetings there. McPherson couldn’t go, but recommended that Price go in her place.
Price drew huge crowds in Oregon to hear him preach and to participate in his healing services. Price’s Oregon campaign led to Victoria and the Victoria campaign led to the 1923 Vancouver meetings (and to later sequel campaigns in both B.C. cities the next year).
Bill Carmichael’s ‘Search for Truth’
I recalled seeing a file in the Archives of First Baptist Church, Vancouver, labelled “Dr. Charles Price Evangelistic Campaigns”. Upon looking inside the file, I saw what appeared to be a couple of typewritten, contemporary accounts, of the experiences of people who had attended the Price meetings. Upon closer examination, however, it became clear that the two documents were written by the same person about a year apart; one of the accounts was written within days of the 1923 Price meetings; the second was written after the 1924 meetings. The author, it turned out, was William M. Carmichael (1880-1947), a member of First Baptist Church.**
Carmichael had heard from FBC’s outgoing pastor, Rev. Gabriel Maguire, of Price’s meetings in Victoria and of the “wonderful cure, ascribed to the prayer of faith, anointing and laying on of hands.”
My experience of this reverend gentleman [Maguire] did not warrant me taking his statements at par value; his eggs, as the Scotch say, “had aye twa yokes” or, in other words, he had so developed the gift? of exaggeration that I never really knew, until I had tested his statements afterwards, where fact left off and fiction began.
Thus it was with a very critical but open mind that I first went to the meetings.
Carmichael attended the first meeting on Sunday night (May 6th) and went again on Monday. Carmichael returned on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday nights. He described the message given on each evening as being “plain gospel”, but by the Friday meeting he added that “the address that evening was another plain talk but somehow it thrilled me. Quite unconsciously, I was clapping my hands and shouting ‘Hear! Hear’ [and] others were shouting ‘Amen!’ ‘Hallelujah!’ and ‘Praise the Lord!’
CVA 1399-523. Denman Arena stage construction. ca 1925. Dominion Photo.
By the Tuesday of the third week of meetings, Carmichael was planning to go forward for healing. He had been hard of hearing in his left ear from an early age.
He received his anointing on Thursday night – the Victoria Day holiday***. He described his experience thus:
[Price] gave me a quiet look of discernment, then he raised his hand and anointed my forehead – that was all that I was aware of. A power came over me and I fell backwards. I felt someone catching me as I fell, I felt someone place something under my head…. As I lay on the floor I was perfectly conscious of the sounds. I was in a blissful state of rest or lassitude and through my mind surged these words, “Thank you Jesus, thank you.” This over and over again….. About a quarter of an hour passed when I opened my eyes and looking up saw Dr [George] Telford [former FBC moderator] standing guard over me.
Carmichael seemed to have had genuine restoration of hearing to his left ear.
When I went to the arena [on…] Friday, the second-last day of the campaign…I went to the furthest back and the highest seat in the whole building to test out my hearing; to my joy I heard Dr. Price in every word.
He summed up his 1923 experience of Price and his campaign as follows:
There were Christians who would have given Dr Price the highest honour the Church could give; there were other Christians who consigned him to the lowest pit of hell where, they said, he belonged….Yet to all, friend or foe, Dr. Price…even in the hottest bombard of venom and criticism, like the Saviour, answered not a word. When he spoke of those who opposed him, it was in the most loving way. “If” as he told us, “you do not see the light as I see it, I have no condemnation for you. All I want you to do is follow the light you have.”
Aftermath
William Carmichael’s very positive reaction to the 1923 campaign was followed by more muted enthusiasm afterwards. He remained convinced that the Price campaign had been a spiritual “uplift” to the church (and not least for his own First Baptist congregation). But he wasn’t sure what to do with his personal ‘healing’ experience. For, although he experienced improvement to his hearing immediately after his anointing by Price, one month later, the deafness had returned.
Carmichael spoke with others of his acquaintance who had received anointing and healing at Price’s meetings. Two of these folks had had similar experiences to his of relapse of ailment (either within a month or within a space of 2-3 months).
I’ll allow Carmichael to relate the response to his inquiry of the third person of his acquaintance, who was more embittered than the others:
[N]ext I met a Mrs. R. “Excuse me, Mrs. R.”, I said, “but you were anointed at the Arena and fell under the power. Did you receive healing?”
She turned on me with a glare of anger, “No,” she fairly hissed. “I believe it was nothing more than that I was hypnotized by the wicked eyes of that she-devil, Miss Carvell.” (Miss Carvell was Dr Price’s singer and assistant.).
And before I could say another word, she shot out the door.
Carmichael went to the second Price campaign meetings in 1924, searching for answers to his questions about his lack of enduring healing. At the end of it, he could only conclude:
Of Dr. Price’s gospel preaching there is no doubt of his sincerity and earnestness as far as I can see; as for his tenets on healing, while I could not say with certainty he is right, on the other hand I could not with positiveness say he was wrong.
______
Notes
*Background on Price comes mostly from “Dr Charles S. Price: His Life, Ministry and Influence”. By Tim Enloe. AG Heritage. 2008.
**He was the author of FBC’s first authorized history, in celebration of the church’s Diamond Jubliee: These Sixty Years 1887-1947. Carmichael was the father of Mrs. Edna-May Slade, currently the oldest member of FBC.
***Victoria Day in these years, must not have been designated as falling on the 4th Monday of May, but rather as being on May 23rd – whatever day of the week that should happen to be.
The image is not the Marine Building (which is decorated with terra cotta marine features such as seahorses); it is the Georgia Medical-Dental Building (decorated with healthcare-related features (such as the nurse figure at the very top of the building).
2. CVA 447-335
I don’t honestly know what is meant by the title wording associated with this image.
The Scope and Content portion of this record claims that the “Photograph shows the Dunsmuir Viaduct.” That is an error. There was no such thing as a Dunsmuir Viaduct in 1949; indeed, not until after the second Georgia Viaduct project was completed circa 1971. Prior to that, the Georgia Viaduct carried traffic both east and west. Only after the 1971 project was there a separate Dunsmuir Viaduct to carry westbound traffic while the Georgia Viaduct carried traffic eastbound.
The Viaduct in the image is Georgia Viaduct.
3. Str P257
This is pretty clearly somewhere other than Georgia Street. It appears to be an image of Ceperley Playground in Stanley Park’s Second Beach. See a very similar image on CVA here.
Vancouver CPR: UL_1085_0030. Views of British Columbia and Alaska. University of British Columbia Library. Rare Books and Special Collections. Uno Langmann Family Collection of B.C. Photographs. n.d. [1880-90]. Artist and photographer unknown.
I find lithographs such as this one (from a volume in the Uno Langmann Collection entitled Views of British Columbia and Akaska) to be very appealing. Vancouver Art historian, Gary Sim, has pointed out that that the first image (from the source hard copy of the book; the signature isn’t visible at the online site) is signed Louis Glaser, Leipzig. Glaser, apparently, had an amazing process by which these lithographs were produced.¹
Views was published by M. W. Waitt & Co, an early Victoria bookseller. Marshall Wilder Waitt (1833-1892) succumbed to Smallpox in 1892 and sometime after that, Waitt’s son-in-law, Charles H. Kent, moved the business to Vancouver. The year that Views was published isn’t known, but the staff in UBC Library’s Special Collections department estimate it was between 1880-90.
I’m aware of there being several examples of B.C. publishers publishing their own work anonymously. As far as I know, that wasn’t the case with Views. However, Waitt’s daughter (who married Waitt’s successor, C. H. Kent) Georgina (1866-1933), was a portrait artist and may have been connected to a capable B.C. artist who she brought to her father’s attention (and who was just hungry enough to agree to M. W. Waitt’s terms of publication anonymity).
I take it that Views sold well because a smaller, “best of”, edition was published a few years later (1900?). There were only 20 or so prints in this little volume. The Langmann (188-?) edition – a first edition, presumably – has about 60 prints.
I am no art critic; mainly I know what I like. I like most of the work in Views, and I’m very interested in finding out who the unsung artist was behind the fine images within its covers. Permit me a brief ramble about my assessment of the art (and artist).
The artistic form is Realism (with a capital ‘R’). There is no hint of any abstract influence in this work at all. I’m convinced that the work in Views is by a single artist; it doesn’t look to me like a compilation of work by a variety of artists. That said, it seems to me that there is a difference in the maturity of the artist’s skill among the several examples in Views. I think that the work comes from different periods in the artist’s life – some of them from relatively early in his/her life; others from later periods. This is best illustrated by looking at the artist’s weakest artistic subject: human figures. In the print shown below (which I take to be an earlier one), the figure in the rowboat is rendered pretty crudely.
The CPR Crossing the Columbia River: UL_1085_0046. Views of British Columbia and Alaska. University of British Columbia Library. Rare Books and Special Collections. Uno Langmann Family Collection of B.C. Photographs. n.d. [1880-90]. Artist and photographer unknown.
But here, in the image called “Indian Groups” the artist demonstrates a skill level vastly superior to that in the rowboat work. The human figures in this image are almost photographic.
Indian Groups: UL_1085_0028. Views of British Columbia and Alaska. University of British Columbia Library. Rare Books and Special Collections. Uno Langmann Family Collection of B.C. Photographs. n.d. [1880-90]. Artist and photographer unknown.
I wish that there was much hope of me tracking down the artist/engraver who did this fine work. But I’m told that engraved work of this period was typically unsigned and that it is very difficult to pin down who was responsible from this distant remove.
Notes
¹For more background info on this artist and his work, see Gary Sim’s talk to the Vancouver Historical Society. The entire talk on early Vancouver artists is worth watching, but for the section pertaining to this artwork, go to the 34.37 mark.
CVA 780-768 – A View looking west down the Unit Block of West Cordova Street from Carrall Street. Photographer unkonwn. 196-.
It is a pity that we don’t know who made this photograph. To me, it is one of gems in the City of Vancouver Archives (CVA) collection. Why do I say that? The muted colour tones, for one thing, speak of a decade that was moving away from black and white images in favour of colour. The people in the image also are appealing to me. Nobody seems to be in a rush. Even the automobile traffic seems quiet. It could be a Sunday afternoon if this photo were made in an era when there was a good reason for pedestrians to be strolling in a retail area — Sunday shopping is two or three decades in the future.
The mix of businesses represented in the image is striking. Rainier Grocery is just visible at the southwest corner of Carrall and Cordova; the Army & Navy anchored the block then (as it does now) in the Dunn-Miller block; there appears to be a loan service on the south side of the street, mid-way down; and, according to the 1969** Vancouver directory, there were assorted other shops plying trade in hardware, lock & safe services, sporting goods, tailoring, umbrella manufacture, and food service.
But if there was a dominant trade on this block, it was the hotel/SRO (single room occupancy) business. On the south side of West Cordova, at least two hotel signs are visible: the Cansino Hotel and the Hildon Hotel (for which, I have to believe, there must have been at least an informal slogan to the effect of ‘If you can’t afford the Hilton, stay at the Hildon!’). And on the north side of the street, there were Boulder Rooms, the Travellers Hotel (also known as the Fortin Building), the Stanley Hotel, the New Fountain Hotel, and Marble Rooms.
The iron fencing that seems discouraging to potential shoppers at retail shops on street level of current Stanley/New Fountain Hotel. 2016. Author’s photo.
There are some big changes in the future for the block. One of the most significant is the redevelopment of the Stanley/New Fountain Hotel. Plans are reportedly in the works for a “facadification” of these old hotels. If reports are accurate, the currently 2-3 storey hotels will be replaced with an 11-storey combo market- and non-market-housing structure. The time is ripe for changes to be made to these SROs and the retail businesses that crouch beneath them (behind a foreboding metal fence). I know that there are critics of the 11-storey profile of the proposed Stanley Hotel. But, frankly, that will put it only three stories higher than its neighbour, the Lori Krill Housing Co-Op.
I’m not sure what is going into the former home of Rainier Grocery, but it looks as though it will be a food service vendor of some description. Across the street, on the northwest corner of Cordova and Carrall, the Bauhous Restaurant has established itself on the main floor of what was once Boulder Hotel/Rooms. But it is pretty clear that there are few, if any, tenants on the upper floors, currently. That will probably change soon.
Meanwhile, there has been at least one change to the block that would have our forebears scratching their heads. The Float House (specializing in “floatation therapy and sensory deprivation”, no less) today occupies the space that once was the manufacturing site of the eminently practical BC Umbrella Co.
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Notes
*A “unit block” is the block of a street or avenue numbered less than 100.
**I looked to the 1969 Directory because the 1960s are identified by CVA as the likely decade when this image was made. I have my doubts about that, however. I favour an early year in the following decade: possibly 1971 or 1972.
VPL 81172B – Cascade Drive-in Theatre at at 3960 Canada Way, in Burnaby. Two automobiles with rain visors (rain visors were rented for cars attending the Drive-In). 1950. Artray Studio.
The Cascade Drive-In in Burnaby was B.C.’s and Canada’s first¹ drive-in theatre. It was started by George and William Steel and Joe and Art Johnson (Steel-Johnson Amusements, Ltd.) in 1946, opening in August of that year. The theatre was built along Grandview Highway.
In 1977, the theatre was purchased by Don Soutar, Al Chappell and Norm Green and continued to operate as a drive-in until it closed in 1980 and was demolished two years later. The property was redeveloped into a condominium complex now known as Cascade Village.
¹There is evidence that a drive-in in Stoney Creek, ON may have just edged out the Cascade Drive-In for bragging rights as the first drive-in in Canada.
Bu N135 – [O’Brien Hall, Metropolitan Block and the De Beck Building, southeast corner of Homer and Hastings Streets] 1940. This was the site of the inaugural exhibition of the A&CA, July, 1900. Interestingly, R. M. Fripp, who was later president of the Arts & Crafts Association, was the designer of O’Brien Hall. The Hall was demolished in 1940, presumably shortly after this image was made.
The Arts & Crafts Association came into being in April, 1900 and lasted little more than a couple of years.* It had as its “chief aim . . . to encourage artistic feeling and knowledge and to bring the designer and the workman or craftsman into closer relationship.” (Brochure, Arts and Crafts Association. Vancouver, B.C., Evans & Hastings [Printer?], n.d. {190-?], CVA Collection off-line).
The Association offered classes in a variety of areas:
Painting and drawing
Modelling
Art Needlework
Design and Execution of Furniture
Architectural Drawing and History
Mechanical Drawing
Photography
Painting on China
Carving
An “annual exhibition” was held in which members were entitled to submit their works for show and sale. The first of these was held in September, 1900 at the Theatre Royal (also known as the Alhambra Theatre), located at Pender and Howe. The second annual exhibit was in 1901 at the Fairfield Building on Granville at Pender. (There was a third exhibit that wasn’t one of the “annual” exhibits. It was an inaugural exhibition at O’Brien Hall (Hastings and Homer) to help celebrate the creation of the association. It was held in July, 1900.)**
Judging from the handwritten list of members held by CVA, about half of the 60+ paid members were women. The gender distribution among the executive was consistent with the time in not being representative of the membership, however the one woman among the ten officers – Mrs. Balfour Ker – was a Vice-President (the other V-P was S. M. Eveleigh). The President and a major force behind the Association was Robert M. Fripp.
Port P552 – Robert MacKay Fripp. ca1888 J. D. Hall photo.
After the 1901 exhibit, the Association seemed to run out of steam. Mention was made in the press that the Association came to an end with the move of R. M. Fripp to California (temporarily) and “the scattering of other important members.”
Some of the functions of the Arts & Crafts Association were assumed by the Studio Club***(1904) and by the B.C. Society of Fine Arts (1908).
Notes
*The Arts & Crafts Association was birthed from an even more short-lived organization: the Art Workers Guild. Not much is known about the Guild except that it was established in early 1900. It was replaced by the A&CA when it was created about three months later.
**A. J. Davis showed some of his artwork and carving at the inaugural exhibit.
***Emily Carr was hired (briefly) in 1905 or 1906 by the Studio Club to be a resource person for one of their painting classes. William Thom quotes Carr regarding her time with the Club in his thesis: “The [Studio]… Club was a cluster of society women who intermittently packed themselves and their admirers into a small rented studio to drink tea and jabber art jargon” (Thom, 30). It won’t be surprising to anyone familiar with her acerbic wit that Miss Carr was dismissed from her job with the Studio Club after just one month. Her impatience with her students was doubtless exceeded only by her students’ distaste for ‘her’ sort of (decidedly non-Victorian) art!
Sources
City of Vancouver Archives. Off-line file on the Vancouver Arts & Crafts Association.
William Wylie Thom. The Fine Arts in Vancouver, 1886-1930: An Historical Survey. M. A. Thesis. UBC. April 1969.
Money’s Mushrooms Former Slogan. On Prior Street a couple of blocks east of Main Street. 2016. Author’s photo.
This sign was painted on the side of a building on Prior Street many years ago. A friend, who is in his 70s, claims not to remember a time when the advertisement wasn’t there.
W. T. Money established W. T. Money & Co. (later, Money’s Mushrooms) in 1928. Its headquarters was at 631 Seymour Street; today, it is based in Surrey.
The slogan shown above was apparently adopted by Money’s in about 1940. It was in use by the company at least through the 1950s, and possibly through the 1970s. What Food These Morsels Be is an example of word play; in this case, the slogan plays with a quotation by William Shakespeare. Shakespeare’s line was “Lord, what fools these mortals be.”* The original Shakespearean line has also been adapted in a blues classic made popular by Etta James and released in 1969.
The elf figure on the left of the ad may be intended to represent the mischievous fairy, Puck, from A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
The first apparent use of the current slogan, Money’s Makes Meals Mmmarvellous, was in an advertising campaign led by Canadian CBC-TV cooking personality, James Barber, The Urban Peasant. He led the campaign for Money’s with the current slogan in the 1980s.
Notes
* A Midsummer Nights Dream Act 3, scene 2, 110–115.
Couple on (Apparently Hand-Powered) Cable Tram (Over Seymour Creek?) UL_1184_03_0058. 1920-30? Photographer Unknown. From Possible Murray Family Album. UBC Library. Rare Books and Special Collections. Uno Langmann Family Collection of B.C. Photographs.
This couple appear pretty relaxed, given that they are suspended by a none-too-sturdy-looking cable over what I believe (but cannot prove) is Seymour Creek in North Vancouver. I’m led to conclude that it is probably Seymour Creek mainly from context. There are a couple otherSeymour Creek images in the same album; and the water appears similarly calm in the other Seymour Creek photos. A friend has suggested that another possibility is the Lynn Creek headwaters.
There are threeothersimilar images in the same album in UBC’s Uno Langmann Family Collection of Early B.C. Photos. The subjects in each of the other three photos are all different and they are not all as relaxed as this couple seems to be.
The photographs all appear to be made by the same (professional, I assume) photographer. I assume that there was a parallel cable car on which the photographer was perched. Either that, or there was a bridge that ran parallel to where our brave pair were.
The name of the commercial enterprise was, in fact, Ye Little Brown Inn, and appears to have been one of the legion lunch counters in downtown Vancouver in the early decades of the twentieth century (among its near competitors were the 800-block Granville outlet of White Lunch and the Old Country Lunch and Tea Rooms at 641 Granville).
YLBI was first established at 606 Granville in 1915 by three ladies: Anna Fletcher, Agnes McKay, and Mary H. Lawrence. It appears that two of the women dropped out of the enterprise sometime within the first year or so of operation. By the time the 1916 Vancouver City Directory was published, Mary Lawrence was the sole proprietor listed. By 1918, the business had moved a couple of blocks, presumably to somewhat less expensive digs, at 745 Dunsmuir (roughly where Holt Renfrew is located today).*
There is no way of knowing how well YLBI did against its many competitors. But by 1922, the business was finished. Mary Helen Lawrence succumbed to Tetanus and died on March 5th, in her 55th year (just five days after being diagnosed with the illness)**. According to the Immunize Canada page pertaining to Tetanus (aka Lockjaw), after 1920, “[t]he introduction of horse antiserum neutralized the effect of tetanus toxin and improved the care of wounds, leading to reduced cases and deaths in Canada and other industrialized countries.” By the 1940s, the serum was readily available and the practice of immunizing infants for Tetanus began.
However it was that Miss Lawrence contracted the disease (whether as part of her work at YLBI or elsewhere), if it had happened just a few years later, chances are good that she would have survived.
Notes
*I was unable to track down any images of YLBI at its Granville or Dunsmuir locations.
**The following details about Miss Lawrence’s life prior to owning YLBI are excerpted from her obituary, published in the March 6, 1922 edition of the Vancouver Daily World: “Miss Lawrence, who owned and managed the Little Brown Inn, had resided in Vancouver for the past eight years. She came here from Paris, France, where she had lived for several years. She was born at Niagara Falls, Ont., and at an early age went to New York, where she trained as a nurse. She followed that profession first In New York, later in Paris, then in Rome, Cairo and again in Paris. She was appointed by the Italian government matron in charge of the hospital ship which was sent to Messina at the time of the big earthquake disaster there and was later decorated by King Emanuel for her services. Her only brother lives in Buffalo and her only near relative in this city is Miss M. A. Leith. The late Miss Lawrence was a member of the I.O.D.E. and the Woman’s Canadian Club. The body will be sent to Niagara Falls, Ont. for burial.”
Portrait of Chief Two Guns White Calf. Painted by A. J. Davis, apparently from a photograph on a postcard (shown below). n.d.
The painting above was purchased by my good friend, Wes, at a thrift store, recently. He didn’t know who the artist was nor anything of his story. He just liked the painted rendering of the portrait. A bit of digging online revealed that the painting was made by Alfred John Davis (a Vancouver artist) – who was unknown to Wes or me – from a photographic postcard of Chief Two Guns White Calf.
A. J. Davis was born in England in 1868. He later immigrated to Canada and settled for a few years in Winnipeg. He came west to Vancouver in 1891, and he married Ellen Ann McCannell here in 1897. His occupation in Winnipeg and in Vancouver was as a railway coach painter for the Canadian Pacific Railway (later on, in Vancouver, he became foreman of the CPR paint shops here).
In a Vancouver Sun profile that was published just a couple of weeks before Davis’ death in 1933, the author noted that
“Mr. and Mrs. Davis are living in a veritable art gallery, wherein beautiful paintings, both in oil and water color, with huge pencil drawings adorn the walls throughout their well-situated home at 3741 39th Avenue West. Indian heads in oil is the chief subject for his brushes and over which has the most absolute control, so much so that he is recognized in artistic circles as the authority in such work.” (A Home Filled with Treasures. Vancouver Sun, January 7, 1933)
The indian subjects appear to have been paintings he did for his own amusement (and probably as an additional income source), although it is possible that his output for the CPR may also have included native american portraits. According to the Sun author, the Davis home was full of wood carvings in addition to oil and watercolour paintings. One of these sounds from the description as though it would have made a lovely piece for a local museum. Whether or not it was donated to the Maritime Museum or the MOV is unknown to me:
“The year 1863 marked the beginning of a new era in the history of British Columbia with the arrival on the Columbia River on March 19 of the first vessel, the historic Beaver, after a passage of 163 days from Gravesend, entirely under sail. Today, all that is left of the vessel* after sinking in the Narrows at Vancouver just forty years ago, is a beautifully carved scimitar and sheath brought to light from a trunk by A. J. Davis…This was carved from part of an inside cupola of the old vessel obtained at low tide after a lengthy scramble over barnacles and sea refuse in the autumn of 1891 about three weeks before the vessel completely disappeared from sight. The Beaver knife sheath has a perfectly carved scroll-work. The curved blade contains a piece of one of the copper rivets used to fasten the old oak beams of the historic old steamer.”
Although I’m very appreciative of the Sun for assigning a reporter (albeit, an anonymous one) to write the profile of the today-all-but-unknown artist, if I’d had my ‘druthers’, it would have been helpful to have more detail about A. J. Davis’ work for the CPR, including what exactly his job entailed. Was he responsible for any of the famous CPR posters? Was he responsible for painting scenes in railway coaches (in which case, most of his career art work must surely now be gone) or (more likely), was it his job to see that all CPR property was properly maintained with a fresh coat of paint, inside and out?
CVA 152-1.180 – [Construction progress photograph of the CPR Pier “A-B” extension] July 1913. A worker is painting the exterior of the pier. Was this the sort of painting work with which A J Davis was principally concerned?
A. J. Davis died while still in harness with his employer of 45 years on January 25, 1933. His widow died in 1953 in Burbank, CA. What happened to the treasures in their former home is unknown to me.
CVA – AM1052 P-872 – The five Georges (ca 1910). The above postcard (front and verso) is the only piece of art and information available at the City of Vancouver Archives pertaining to A. J. Davis. The drawing of the “Five Georges” is a reproduction of a painting, according to the note on the card’s face.
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Notes
*This claim that the Davis item is the sole extant piece of the Beaver isn’t accurate. See here for an image of an auction mallet composed of wood from the craft and a reference to “a number of other such items” from the Beaver, including its boiler which resides outside of the Maritime Museum.
__
April 19/16: I have just found a listing of a few others of AJD’s work; they were on display at the Theatre Royal (aka the first Orpheum Theatre), as part of the First Annual Exhibition of the Arts and Crafts Association, September 25-27, 1900.
Traffic congestion and inadequate housing are subjects which are revisited regularly in Vancouver. The previous post was a look at how the City tried to persuade residents not to be ‘Traffic Peakers’ in the 1940s. This post is a reproduction of a News-Herald ‘Editorial in Pictures’ that deals with the editor’s views on the state of housing in Vancouver during the WWII era.
I have been able to find all of the photos, except one, used in the News-Herald editorial within the City of Vancouver Archives. Except for that missing photo, the content of the article is reproduced here just as it appeared in 1944:
Something Must Be Done
(An Editorial in Pictures)
The authoritative and detailed survey by the Vancouver Council of Social Agencies reveals that more than 2,000 Vancouver families are living in such “shockingly inadequate” housing that ordinary city slums would look like heaven to them.
The City Council has made nine “appeals” to Ottawa for more housing, but has taken no practical steps to deal with the emergency. “I don’t see what more we can do,” says the Mayor.
The Dominion government has accepted responsibility for only a limited amount of housing for actual war workers, and for some financial assistance for post-war housing projects.
The provincial government merely supplies a sheriff to carry out evictions.
But 2,000 Vancouver families – 4,000 men and women and more than 4,000 children – are living from day to day, NOW, as are those pictured here.
Says the Council of Social Agencies: “These conditions . . . are a damning indictment of the failure of the authorities.”
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More than 12 families live in this double row of ramshackle and unsanitary tenements on Sixth Avenue in Fairview. They are less than a quarter of a mile from Shaughnessy Heights, but no proud citizens bring visitors to see Vancouver’s “line homes” HERE.
CVA 1184-639 – [Garbage and garbage containers at the slums in the 300 block East Cordova] 1943 Jack Lindsay photo.
Here is a Vancouver child. Here is his playground. Hundreds of youngsters, the hope of our city’s future, spend their waking hours at play in back alleys like this. This lane is one block from police headquarters and the city jail.
CVA 1184-2612 – [Tenement building] 1940-48 Jack Lindsay photo.
War industry booms and Vancouver’s busy harbor seeths (sic) with activity less than a block from this row of hutches for human beings on Alexander Street. In such conditions as this live the city’s “pampered workers” – 20 of them and their families in this one ancient building. Notice the pathetic endeavor to grace its tattered railings with flowers and vines.
CVA 1184-2615 – [View of the rear of a tenement house] 1940-48 Jack Lindsay photo.
The city rejoiced when the Japs were moved out of the human rabbit warrens on Powell Street, hailing the end of our worst slum. But it was not the end. These wretched buildings are now filled with white families, in some cases, six and seven persons to a room.
Downtown Vancouver “Traffic Peaker” Ad. Vancouver News-Herald. Sports page. July 19, 1944.
This 1940s ad, which I’m assuming was a production of the City of Vancouver, makes use of all three of the classical rhetorical appeals. There is ethos in the use of statistics, figures, and a chart to persuade the audience that the persuader is credible. Pathos is applied by attempting to make the audience feel emotions (guilt, primarily). And logos is used to persuade the audience by presenting an argument which the persuader hopes will be seen as logical.
It would seem that there has been little improvement in downtown congestion between the 1940s and the 20-teens.* What sorts of rhetorical appeals are used today in the ‘battle’ to reduce automobile congestion? The same ones as were implemented in the ’40s, as far as I can tell. Only today, the appeal to pathos seems to be in the guise of guilt over contributions to global warming, rather than guilt over slowing down your neighbours’ trips home at rush hour.
Notes
*But there appears today to be at least a willingness, on the part of many Vancouver residents, to support alternatives to automobile traffic into downtown (the growing popularity of mass transit Skytrain options, for instance, and bicycles). This is in contrast with the apparent situation in the 1940s. The ad assumes that the automobile is the only viable means of getting into downtown. And this in a decade when streetcars were still an option (albeit, for a very few years more).
VPL 21209 North West Building (8-storey bldg.) and the site (as of 1939) of Western Manufacturers Salvage to the left at 525 Richards (roughly at the location where Albion Books is today; the building shown here is long gone). 1921. Dominion Photo Co.
Henry Samuel Van Buren (1885-1977) was a Vancouver business owner from the late ’20s until the late ’40s. He seems to have had two principal businesses: VB Grocery (from 1926 until about 1935) and Western Merchandise Brokers (during the 1940s).
Henry Samuel Van Buren (often called “Harry” throughout his life) was born in 1884 in Morden, MB to Henry Cornelius Van Buren and Rosamond Law. He was the middle child of three; Abram and Hazel were his older and younger siblings, respectively. In 1905, Van Buren set out to homestead a piece of land in the area around Macleod, AB (today, Fort Macleod). A few years later, he moved to the Strathmore area (east of Calgary). What his occupation there was, isn’t clear.
Sometime between 1923 and 1925, Van Buren moved to Vancouver. He established his first business here, VB Grocery, at 1509 Commercial Drive. He packed it in as a grocer by 1935 and a couple of years later was proprietor of Western Merchandise Brokers, a salvage firm at 525 Richards (a couple doors south of Pender on the west side of Richards). By the late 1940s, he retired.
Henry Samuel married Clara Mabel Snell. The year they were married and the year of his wife’s death are not clear (one source shows her passing in 1935; another shows 1972). Henry and Mabel had one child, Henry Lloyd, who died in 2003. The Van Burens (at least as far back as H. S. Van Buren’s grandfather) had been Baptists.
Van Buren moved to Vancouver Island after retiring from the salvage business.* In his very late years, Van Buren returned to Vancouver, where he lived out his final days. He died at 92 at Pearson Hospital in 1977. Padre James Duncan (former Pastor Emeritus, First Baptist Church, Vancouver) led Van Buren’s memorial service.
Notes
*There is evidence of a Harry Van Buren living in Victoria from 1948. However, the Victoria Directory shows him living there with someone called “Enid”. Because I’ve found no other mention of an Enid in any Van Buren records, I’m inclined to treat this as being someone other than our Harry Van Buren.
Crop of CVA 99-89 – Close view of a wing of the Vancouver City Market where Mudge the Poultry Man advertised his presence within. The sign reads (in part) “Mudge The Poultry Man”. 1910. Stuart Thomson.
William Mudge’s business was known in early Vancouver as Mudge & Son and (probably better) as Mudge the Poultry Man. As indicated in the latter name, he specialized in providing chicken products to hard-working, hungry Vancouverites. He hung his shingle at Vancouver’s farmer’s market, known then as the City Market which was originally located, from 1908 until before 1925 (when the building was destroyed by fire) roughly where ScienceWorld is today.
VPL 7435 New City Market opened that year at Westminster Ave (Main after 1910), west of Westminster or False Creek Bridge. 1908. P. T. Timms.
Mudge was a recent emigrant to Canada from England (1909) and lived near Main and 25th Avenue (King Edward Ave.) with his wife Ethel (nee Walmesley), first son, William, second and third sons Wilfred and Gerald, and his only daughter, Mary Monica (known by the nickname, ‘Queenie’, which may have been an homage to Queen Victoria.)
We don’t know the exact Vancouver address of the Mudges; their mailing address was simply “City Heights”, the name of the local post office which, with its establishment in 1911, was located at 4116 Main Street, George P. Findlay, postmaster.* I should point out that the original structure in which City Heights Post Office seems to have resided is extant; it is the building immediately to the south of the Walden Building (1910), which was known at the time as Findlay Place (Apartments), doubtless named for George the Postmaster.**
LGN 487 – The camera is facing south down Main St, located approximately at 25th Ave. The Walden Building is the 3-storey structure on the left (extant); Findlay Place Apartments and City Heights Post Office was in the building adjacent to and south of Walden (also extant). 1912? W J Moore photo.
Later in life, William and Ethel moved to Cobble Hill, on Vancouver Island (not far from Cowichan Bay). It isn’t clear whether they continued to produce poultry at Cobble Hill, but there is evidence that they remained producers – of seed potatoes.***
William Mudge died in 1932 and was buried in Cobble Hill Cemetery.
Notes
*I’m appreciative of the generosity of the gent who blogs at WestEndVancouver for clearing up the mystery of where on earth “City Heights” was. Thank you! Note: By 1919, the Mudges were living at 3115 Quebec (near 15th Avenue).
**Note: The numbers along this block today don’t accurately represent the locations of businesses with the same numbers in 1912.
***Just a couple years before William Sr.’s death, he was elected as an officer of the BC Certified Seed Potato Grower’s Association. (Daily Colonist, November 1929)
Late-breaking information on Val Quan (June 13, 2016): See comment from Bonnie, Val’s grand-daughter. She kindly provided some additional details. The information she supplied has been incorporated below.
Val Quan (sometimes spelled Quon), his second wife, Pauline, and their family were fixtures around First Baptist Church for a number of years. Val was born in China in 1906, emigrating to Canada in 1921, when he was 15 years old. He settled initially in Moose Jaw, SK, where he worked in the National Café. He later spent time in Shaunavon, SK (pop. today is just over 1700); he was a member of First Baptist Church in Shaunavon.
In 1954, Val moved to Vancouver where he established his own café at the SE corner of Hamilton and Davie streets.* His café was in the heart of Yaletown, just steps from the CPR yards and the roundhouse.
Val and his first wife, May, were married in China. They had three daughters and one son, Robert, all born in China. TheChinese Exclusion Act, 1923-47, prevented Val from bringing his family to Canada. In 1950, when the Act was no longer in force, May came to Vancouver together with their two youngest kids, Jean and Robert.
May died of cancer in Vancouver six years after emigrating. Robert died 10 years later (1966) at age 18, from injuries sustained in a motorcycle accident.
Val re-married; it isn’t clear to me when he married Pauline. They had a family – Edward, Gordon, and Nancy. Edward (Eddie) is remembered by First Baptist member, Edna-May Slade, as being a “magnificent” pianist; all of the Quan kids are remembered by her as being “brilliant”. I have recently discovered that Edward Quan was (with Jim Neilson) an editor of the 1980s FBC newsletter called First Contact.
Val died in 1988 at 81; Pauline later.
As is often the the case with immigrant names, Val’s surname did not survive the journey to Canada unscathed. They were known around the church (and by others who were not Chinese, no doubt) as the ‘Thing’ family. Mr. Quan’s given name was not Val. It was Sung Siu. Val was probably his choice of an ‘English’ name.
Although it is not at all unusual, today, to have people who are of Chinese origin (and of other ethnicities) among the members and adherents of FBC, it was a different story in the 1950s and 1960s. At that time, the congregation (and the population of Vancouver, generally) was nearly homogeneously white.
Sung Siu Quan and his family truly were pioneers at First Baptist Church.
Notes
*It’s possible that he moved his cafe to Smithe Street near Cambie at some point.
—
The text of this post was written originally for First Baptist Church’s 125th Anniversary (2011), as part of my series of brief biographies of former FBC members, titled Who Was Who in the Pews. It is reproduced here with a number of corrections, editorial changes, and additional details. The author especially appreciates the information provided by Val Quan’s grand-daughter, Bonnie.
CVA 789-74 – Looking west on Davie at Granville after a heavy snowfall. The M. Lester Dancing Academy is advertised on the Davie side of the building, although by the time this image was made, it had almost certainly moved into its new digs at Davie near Burrard. 1916.
It’s Hazy in Detroit
There isn’t a lot known about the proprietress of M. Lester Dancing Academy. Maud was an Ontario girl (although exactly where in Ontario she was born and raised or what her maiden name was isn’t clear to me). At some point, she married American Frederick W. Lester and in 1898 in Detroit, they had their only child, Dorothy.* How Frederick and/or Maud earned their daily bread while they were in Detroit isn’t clear, either. Indeed, it is clear only that they didn’t tarry there for long.
As the century turned, they set out for Victoria, BC.
Victoria: Little Michigan?
Frederick found work as a clerk in Victoria’s Driard Hotel (facade extant). Their residence during their time in Victoria was, interestingly, at 52 Michigan Street (an homage to their earlier home?)
Maud, meanwhile, established a dancing school in Victoria.**
She leased the hall of the AOUW (Ancient Order of United Workmen). The following appeared in the Victoria Daily Colonist on October 31, 1904:
Mrs. Lester’s Dancing Academy – A very enjoyable time was spent at A.O.U.W. Hall Saturday night. The occasion was a grand Cinderella dance given by Mrs. Lester to the members of her Friday night class and their friends. About forty couples tripped the light fantastic over a beautifully conditioned floor to the music supplied by Miss Heater who presided at the pianoforte. Among the young ladies who joined in the various sets were many in their ‘teens, pupils of Mrs. Lester, and their ease of movement and the grace with which they went through the various complicated figures of dances, showing unmistakable evidence of careful training. The main hall of the A.O.U.W. building has undergone a complete metamorphosis since it has been leased by Mrs. Lester for her classes. Gay bunting is tastefully festooned overhead, the side lights are shielded in delicate and effective tints, while the “cosy corners” are neatly and comfortably furnished and draped with Oriental textures. There is ample seating accommodation, abundant floor space, and a happy temperature which is always maintained. The supper room is a model of neatness, as indeed is the whole arrangement. This is the third season Mrs. Lester conducts these dancing classes, and the success which is attending them is proof of their great popularity.
Maud’s dance lessons weren’t held exclusively at the AOUW Hall during their time in Victoria. There was also a period during which the Academy called the Alexandra Royal College ‘home’ (on Government Street, “opposite the new post office”). As well, “parties desiring instructions at their own homes may be accommodated.”
“Lester Hall”: 1205 Granville
The Lesters pulled up Victoria stakes by about 1908 and headed across the Strait of Georgia to Vancouver. By 1909, the M. Lester Dancing Academy had hung its shingle on an upper floor of the chemist’s shop at the southwest corner of Davie and Granville (1205 Granville). The Lesters also lived in the building. They didn’t own the building, however. The owner, certainly by 1913 if not before, was local architectural luminary, Thomas Fee.
In the 1909-12 editions of Vancouver Directories, Frederick described his occupation as “Dancing Master”. In the 1909-10 editions, “M. Lester” didn’t get mentioned; and in the 1911 edition, while Mrs. M. Lester received her own listing, she didn’t rate a professional designation. Just before moving out of their Granville location in 1913, however, there had been a remarkable even-ing of self-described designations: both Frederick and Maud were described as “Dancing Teachers”.
In addition to the Dance Academy, the Lesters supplemented income from the business by sub-letting the space to groups that were looking for a hall in which to hold a dance. Thus, the 1205 Granville property was known not only as M. Lester Dance Academy, but also as “Lester Hall”.
“Lester Court”: 1024 Davie
Sometime in 1914 or 1915, the Lesters’ new professional and residential location (designed by Thomas Hooper) on Davie near Burrard, was ready for them to move into.
They chose to call the dance school in its new location what it had always been called. But the dance hall would no longer be “Lester Hall”; it would be called “Lester Court”. What was the reason for the name change? It was probably partly to distinguish the Burrard Street property from the older and probably smaller one on Granville.
CVA 99-5118 – Bazaar at Leister (sic) Court, Pro-Cathedral Bazaar. Lester Court – 1024 Davie. Flashlight. 1917. Stuart Thomson photo.
CVA 99-5227 – [Unidentified group at a dance]. Lester Court – 1024 Davie. ca1922. Stuart Thomson photo.
CVA 99-5231 – [Unidentified group in costume in ballroom]. Lester Coury – 1024 Davie. 192-?. Stuart Thomson photo.
CVA 99-5296 – Vancouver Daily Sun Staff 2nd Annual Dance Lester Court [1024 Davie Street] Dec. 13th 1918. Stuart Thomson photo. (Exposure adjusted by author). Note the fellow in the balcony (centre, rear) holding “Extra” sign.
CVA 99-5250 – Firemen’s 25th Annual Ball. Lester Court [1024 Davie Street] Nov. 14th 1923. Stuart Thomson photo. (Exposure adjusted by author). Note the band instruments in the raised area at the rear of the auditorium.
Denouement
M. Lester Dance Academy ceased to be in Maud’s name in 1923. She would have been about 54, then. From 1923 until 1931, when the school seems to have ceased operations, it was known as Lester’s Dance Academy (F. W. Lester, proprietor).
Maud’s final years are as opaque as her very early years. I don’t know why she apparently withdrew from the dance school. Was she ill? Was she simply tired of the daily grind? I haven’t been able to track down her death certificate, but I know that she died in 1943.
Frederick was retired from the business by 1934. By 1935, Lester Court was no more; it was then known as the Embassy Ballroom and was under new management. Frederick died in 1946.
The building that housed Lester Court still stands today. See here for what it has been called at different times since the Lesters retired.
Bu P508.17 – Embassy Ballroom, sign on side of former Lester Court building. Embassy Ballroom was one of the later businesses at this location. 1958 A L Yates photo.
Celebrities Nightclub (Former Lester Court) at 1024 Davie in 2016. Author’s photo.
Notes
*Dorothy died (of cause unknown to me) when she was just 13.
**Note Maud’s professional designation as a Member of the National Association of Masters of Dancing. See here for more about this American organization.
CVA 99-1951 – Police and Fireman church parade. The parade is passing the Georgia Medical-Dental building (under construction) with the Devonshire Hotel (later Apartments) in the background (on the site where, today, HSBC is situated). The parade participants were probably on their way to Christ Church, next door to the Medical-Dental block. 1929 Stuart Thomson photo.
I think I may have a reasonable explanation as to why Church Street (the north-south lane between Seymour and Richards and Georgia and Robson) was so named in the early years of the city. It seems to me that the name may have been connected to Church Parades.
Church Parades were parades of military and/or quasi-military personnel (e.g., police, firefighters) with the purpose of attending a service of worship together. In Vancouver’s early years, the official church which would likely have been attended by such a group was an Anglican one – most likely Christ Church (Georgia and Burrard).
The lane that was Church Street, it seems to me, would have been an ideal assembly location for church parade participants to get themselves organized prior to marching west up Georgia Street the few blocks to Christ Church.
CVA 586-4174 – A view of 325 Howe looking toward the northwest. 1946. Don Coltman photo.
The Name Game
The building shown above has been known as the “Welton” Building (1912-1919), the “Pacific Coast Fire” Building (1920-?), and recently, probably, simply as good old 325 Howe.
Who decides what a building shall be called? It is usually safe to say that the owner calls the tune. That makes sense when you consider the name which 325 Howe has gone by for the better part of its life. Pacific Coast Fire Insurance bought the building, likely in 1919/20 and from then on (until relatively recently) it was known as the Pacific Coast Fire Building. The name doesn’t exactly trip off the tongue. But naming the building after the corporate owner made some sense.
So, you may ask, who was the owner before 1919/20? Was it a Mr. (or less likely, but possibly, a Mrs.) Welton? Ah, gentle reader, that would be too easy.
In truth, the best I can do is guess why 325 Howe was known as the Welton Block in its early years. The original owner of the structure was National Finance Co. (Thomas Hooper, architect). It could be that there was a Welton on the board of National Finance, but assuming so doesn’t get us anywhere, as that is beyond my capacity to research.
I had the idea of checking Elizabeth Walker’s Street Names of Vancouver, to see if there might have been a street named after a Welton. Apparently so! Part of Sophia Street was once, briefly, known (1905-1910) as Welton Steet, named for “James Welton Horne (1854-1922), a pioneer Vancouver realtor who served on Vancouver City Council, 1888-90; chaired the Parks Board, 1888-94; and was an MLA, 1890-4).”
So the Welton building was named after a guy’s middlename? Really? (Well, it’s just a guess.)
A Glimpse of the Pre-Reclaimed Waterfront
CVA 99 – 3307 – A view of 325 Howe from the CPR tracks looking toward the south/southwest; the “bluff” (and a retaining wall) is visible on the left of the image. 1920. Stuart Thomson photo.
Probably the most fascinating aspect of 325 Howe and the images above and below is that they afford us a glimpse of Vancouver’s waterfront prior to the “reclamation” of land north of what we know as Cordova west of Granville.*
Until 1952, Cordova didn’t extend west of Granville Street. It went to the CPR Station near Granville Street, and there it dead-ended. Between Granville and Burrard Streets was “The Bluff”. Major Matthews, Vancouver’s first archivist, defined the bluff as the “cliff elevation” running between Granville and Burrard.
I was born and raised in Alberta not far from the Rockies, so you’ll forgive me if I take issue with the Major’s choice of the word “cliff” to describe what to me is a “hill” (less than 100 feet, I’d estimate from photos I’ve seen). But this minor word quibble aside, there was definitely a vertical drop,during the early years, from the foot of Howe to the CPR tracks.
It is possible, even today, for someone strolling past 325 Howe to get some sense of the bluff. At the corner of Howe and Cordova, there is a railing over which you can lean and see down to the lower floors of 325 Howe. The then-ground floor (as against what we know today as the “ground” floor on the Howe Street concrete platform) was parallel with the CPR tracks.
CVA 6-11 – A view of 325 Howe and it’s neighbours (including Finch Garage, from up the lane); also shows the Royal Train bearing King George VI and Queen Elizabeth (ultimately the ‘Queen Mother’). 1939. W B Shelly photo.
Notes
*The word “reclamation”, by the way, makes no intuitive sense to me (not, at least, in the way it is typically used by city planners and architects). It suggests that the act of reclaiming has, at its primary motive, the act of putting things back as they once were. But, in fact, reclamation rarely, if ever, has been driven by this kind of historical “purity” (if that is even possible or desirable) as its principal motive or planned result. Rather, it is typically the establishment of a completely new thing, often using materials/technology which were earlier unavailable.
This post is a footnote to the history of First Baptist Church, Vancouver. Neither These Sixty Years (1947) by W. A. Carmichael nor Our First Century (1986)by Leslie J. Cummings (the two official histories of the church) makes mention of a call from FBC issued to Rev. Dr. John Quincy Adams Henry (1856-1922) to fill the post of Senior Minister vacated in August 1907 by Rev. J. Willard Litch. Both histories note the date of Litch’s departure and then remark in the next sentence that Rev. Dr. H. Francis Perry took up the pastoral leadership at FBC in July 1909 (fully two years later). It doubtless seemed best to the authors, at the times the histories were published, not to mention the call to the then-pastor of First Baptist Church, Los Angeles. But, as all of the principals have been dead for decades, it seems to me that the that this two-year period can safely be sketched in a bit.
Who Was John Quincy Adams Henry?
Who was this man with the singular name whom FBC Vancouver leaders had concluded was the pastor who’d lead First through the pangs of establishing a new church building on the corner of Burrard and Nelson?
JQAH was born in Iowa in 1856, “a direct descendent of Patrick Henry” (Our Heritage and Our Hope). After finishing post-secondary studies at the University of Chicago and Union Theological Seminary, JQAH was ordained into Baptist ministry in 1880. He spent 20 years pastoring churches in cities including Denver, Chicago, and San Francisco; and he spent two years as superintendent of the Anti-Saloon League in New York State. But his greatest passion and evident giftedness was as an evangelist. After concluding his ministry in San Francisco, he spent nearly six years in the UK (he had initially planned to be there for three years), leading an evangelistic and temperance campaign, during which it was estimated he addressed over three million people.
Following a series of evangelistic meetings at First Baptist Church Los Angeles, the L.A. church called JQAH to be their pastor (August, 1907).
FBCLA was known at the time to be a less-than-peaceful pastoral charge. Indeed, as their church history reveals, it was known to have a body of lay leaders who didn’t mind stirring the pot. JQAH was no fool, and he could see from the start that this was going to be a challenge for him: “At his very first Council meeting he ‘made a strong address demanding absolute harmony and devotion to the Church’ by the official board” (Our Heritage and Our Hope). JQAH’s address to his board wasn’t the last word on the back-biting, however. It wasn’t long before there was an uproar over a (very modest by today’s standards) deficit budget,* and other issues.
The Courting of JQAH
In late 1908 or early 1909, JQAH came to FBC Vancouver, at Vancouver’s invitation, to preach. The lay leaders in Vancouver no doubt indicated to JQAH that he was ‘preaching for a possible call’. Whether the larger congregation was aware of that or not, isn’t clear. It is likely that JQAH was also interviewed by the board as part of the calling process during his time in Vancouver.
After JQAH’s visit, FBC issued a formal call for him to come to Vancouver as the new Pastor of FBC. He responded positively. Indeed, it seemed that he’d all but made up his mind to leave L.A. for Vancouver.
Abiding by the Stuff
In mid-February, 1909, a telegram was sent from L.A. to FBC Vancouver: “New difficulty here which forbids my leaving. A thousand regrets. See letter. Love to all.”
The letter (of February 17) to which the telegram referred expanded on the theme:
While visiting you, I was profoundly impressed by the greatness of the opportunity presented by your church and field….[I] left with my mind made up to accept your invitation and become your pastor, provided that I could see my way clear to leave the work in Los Angeles with a reasonable assurance that what I had already done for the peace and and prosperity of the church would be conserved and someone found to carry the work to a still further point of usefulness and power. But on my return [to FBCLA], much to my distress, I found the seeds of bitterness sown through the long years of strife bearing fruit in promised discord and disunion. It is now morally certain that if I were to leave at this junction another split would occur and irreparable injury be done to the work of God in this city.
The entire church feel that I alone can prevent this disaster. I feel therefore under sacred obligation to “abide by the stuff”** until a different state of things can be brought about – which may require weeks, months, or even years. I dare not keep you good people who have so highly honored me in longer suspense, lest some peril should come to the great work in which you are called….”
In short, no doubt to the dismay of the board, he would not be coming to Vancouver.
It is impossible to know from this very distant point in time and space just how great a ‘disaster’ was imminent at FBCLA in the event of his departure. But, without wishing to cast any doubt on JQAH’s integrity, I’d suggest that things might not have been quite so bleak in L.A. as was the word picture he painted for FBC Vancouver. A couple of clues led me to this conclusion.
First, in a final letter sent to FBCV, just 4 weeks after his decline-of-call letter, he remarked: “The difficulties here are being smoothed out, with every prospect that the cause of all our trouble will soon be removed.”
Second, in November 1909 (eight months after indicating in his hand-wringing letter to Vancouver about the potential for “irreparable injury” should he leave FBCLA) he announced to the FBCLA congregation that he would be departing at the end of the year. In the words of FBCLA’s history, “his first love was evangelism and he had accepted an invitation for a year or more of such work in New Zealand” (Our Heritage and Our Hope).
I think that JQAH made the right choices – not to come to Vancouver and to leave FBCLA for evangelistic work. I believe he’d realized as early as February, 1909 that itinerant work as an evangelist was the life for him. There were no hassles with church boards and he could preach more or less unfettered without worries associated with political games. It turned out well for FBC Vancouver, too. The man who was ultimately called, Rev. Dr. H. Francis Perry had exactly the right skill/talent set for the job as First Vancouver prepared to move into its new building (the current one) at the corner of Burrard and Nelson.
Notes
*Projected expenses outstripped projected income by about $150/month, according to FBCLA’s history.
**This is a Biblical quotation (I Samuel 30:24). Mind you, the King James Version, which is probably the translation with which JQAH was most conversant, is a little different.
Crop of CVA 447-348 – 7th Ave and Gran.[ville] Sts. 1964 W E Frost. photo. (VAIW Note: The Roxy Theatre is the light-coloured building with the marquee near the centre of the image).
There isn’t much known about the Fairview Theatre (1912-38), later called the Roxy Theatre (1939-55?). In fact, I have never before seen a photograph of the theatre.
According to the building permit for the Fairview (which appears in the permit database as being at 2222 Granville, but for all its history was listed in Vancouver directories at 2224 Granville), it was built in early 1911, apparently to cater specifically to “moving pictures”. This must have been one of the first such theatres in Vancouver; more typical were theatres that catered to vaudeville acts and, as vaudeville became scarcer, were modified to show movies.
We don’t know the capacity of the Fairview, but from the image, it appears to have been a relatively small theatre (I would guess fewer than 500)*. This seems to be confirmed by its estimated construction cost: $6,500. In contrast, the Dominion Theatre, which was built the same year on Granville near Nelson, was estimated to cost $50,000.
The owners/architects of the theatre in 1911 were identified on the building permit simply with their surnames: “Stark & Crosby”. The Stark side of the partnership may have been William McIntosh Stark, Vancouver’s aviation pioneer, who had an interest in a variety of cool stuff (e.g., automobiles, airplanes, and bicycles, when they were novel) – but this is only a hunch; I cannot prove it. Who Crosby was, I have no idea. The builder of the structure was William O’Dell.
The theatre stood on Granville Street, just south of the south end of Granville Bridge.
Screen capture from this video (at about 8.25): CVA – 2015-023.1 – Fairview Belt Line, ca1950.
The little theatre was demolished, along with the retail shops along the east side of the 2200 block of Granville around 1964 (shortly after this image was made, I assume), in preparation for construction of the Pacific Press building that would open on this block in 1966.
Today, the lot on which the theatre stood is a green space adjacent to Panache Antiques.
Notes
*According to this site, the capacity of the Fairview/Roxy was 449.
These are two separate images of adjacent shops made at the corner of Granville & Nelson in 1969. Left image: CVA 780-26 – Belmont Grocery, Theatre Row, [at 999 Granville Street] 1969. Right image: CVA 780-24 – [View of a] sign, storefront, Quality gifts, Theatre Row, [at 995 Granville Street] 1969.
Crop of CVA 800-2100 – [Description in Progress] n.d. Alan J. Ingram photo.
There is what appears to be a slogan on the wall of the Clowes Building (with my thanks to the comment from ChangingCity below), on Granville Street north of Davie, for Robert Reeds, erstwhile Mayoral candidate in the 1970 civic election. It seems to claim that Reeds will, if successful in his bid for the Mayor’s job, make sure that there is “Country Music, Fulltime“!
It seems doubtful that this was, in fact, a campaign slogan. It looks more likely that the “promise” was associated with The Barn – a country music dance spot adjacent to the hotel (with its pink wall facing the camera). But it makes a good story!
Reeds seems to have bailed out of the 1970 election campaign before voting day. He ran in the previous election, however (in 1968) and captured less than 1% of the vote. The winner in 1968 and in 1970 was Tom (“Terrific”) Campbell– the golden-haired boy of Vancouver developers. I suspect Reeds would have been crooning a classic ‘hurtin’ song if he’d remained in the race.
Crop of CVA 1184-3444 – [View of Hastings Street] 1945 Jack Lindsay photo. (VAIW Note: In addition to cropping the original image, I have adjusted the exposure to better show the people near the right frame.)
This is a very nice image made by Jack Lindsay, probably on VE or VJ Day.* The photographer was on ground level for this shot, standing in a vacant parking spot in front of the Bank of Toronto building (later, the TD Bank, and today, SFU’s Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue). I suspect that the rubber-necker in the foreground, far right, is responding to the sight of the photographer and is turning to see what is so photographable.
The building adjacent to the bank was one of Vancouver’s oldest commercial structures: the Innes-Thompson building (shown below). It was sacrificed for the development of the Delta Vancouver Suites in 1994.
SGN 14 – [Businesses at 500 block of West Hastings Street] 189-? Charles S Bailey photo. (VAIW note: CVA mistakenly has described this building – in the Scope and Content section – as the Ogle-Thompson building. The O-T block was across the street, on the north side of Hastings).
Canadian National Telegraphs, Mitchell-Foley Stationers and Printers, and Premier Coffee Shop, (as well as, according to Vancouver’s Directory although not visible here, a shop called Personality Photo) were store-front tenants of the Innes-Thompson block in 1945.
*I reached this conclusion because of what appears to be toilet paper or ticker-tape on the pavement in the foreground and mid-air beneath the Woodward’s sign in the background.
CVA 180-4245 – Construction of a ‘Project X’ structure on P.N.E. grounds 1959 Graphic Industries photo.
This photo shows the 1958 Pacific National Exhibition (PNE) feature celebrating British Columbia’s centennial year.* Project X “was kept secret until the eve of the fair, when it was revealed that the attraction was a display of modern rocketry. The highlight of the show was a large standing rocket, complete with simulated blast off. Other displays included a Space Science club run by the Canadian Legion, a fifty-foot high American army missile, and earth satellites.” (Vancouver’s Fair. David Breen and Kenneth Coates. UBC Press: 1982, p.123).
Note
*If CVA’s date for this image is accurate, it seems likely that the photo shows Project X being dismantled rather than constructed.
Crop of CVA 447-207 – East side of Main Street at Alexander (near the Burrard Inlet foot). VAIW Note: The newly built Canadian National Steamships wharf is visible just outside this crop (to the left). The Burrard Iron Works advertisement is still up; most of the other buildings in this crop are no longer here. 1931? W. E. Frost photo.
“Opening of Pendrell St Grounds, May 1915” (from handwriting on back of photo). First Baptist Church Vancouver Archives Collection.
This photo shows a ‘park’ in Vancouver’s West End that seems to have been all but forgotten. It was located on Pendrell Street (D.L. 185, Block 70, Lot 31); an empty lot at the time the image was made. It was two lots west of the extant Gilford Court Apartments. The building in the background at right with the distinctive turret/tower feature was the home of architect Thomas Fee at the corner of Gilford and Comox. (To help you get your bearings, a piece of Goade’s 1912 fire insurance map of Vancouver appears below).
Pendrell Street Grounds was located in District Lot 185, Block 70, Lot 31 (Pendrell Street). 1912 Goad’s Vancouver Fire Insurance Map, Plate 8.
Many if not all of the folks posing in the photo were members of First Baptist Church. The names that were scrawled on the photo’s verso appear to be (in a very rough, left-to-right order): S. Miner, F. McDonald, Baker, Mabel McKeen, C. Ivy, Marie Selman, G. Rafern?, H. Brown, Geo. Hanks, Dr. Sparrow, Mrs. Hanna, L. Selman, K. Stern, J. Allan, Dr. Hanna, Ella McBraid, Harvie S., Morgan L. Hearns, John, Mr. Morgan, S. Harcus?,?, May Selman.
I strongly suspect that the Grounds were not a formal City of Vancouver park, but merely an empty lot that was kitted out with a tennis net. I haven’t ruled out a First Baptist connection to the owner of the property, but it seems unlikely.*
The lot on which the Pender Street Grounds were remained empty of any residence, it appears, for well over a decade after the 1915 photo was taken. There is no evidence of habitation at 1937 Pendrell until 1927; B. Lotzkar was the owner at that time, according to Vancouver’s directory.
Another view from elevation appears below. This shows Pendrell Street Grounds clearly three lots left of Gilford Court Apartments. Today, La Carina apartment block is where the Grounds once were.
CVA 371-723 – [Houses on the north side of the 1900 Block of Pendrell Street] 191-?
Notes
*The owner of the adjacent lot (to the west) for the final two years of his life (1911-12) was FBC member and Vancouver pioneer, John Morton (1947 Pendrell – the home to the left of PSG in CVA 371-723. This doesn’t appear to be anything more than coincidence. Charles Abraham Schooley, City of Vancouver paymaster for many years and an honorary deacon at FBC lived at the end of the block (2057 Pendrell); again, there is no evidence of a connection with PSG.
I am indebted to two gents whose help was invaluable in unravelling the mystery of the location of the Pendrell Street Grounds: RKM, who blogs at westendvancouver, and Patrick Gunn, a board member with Heritage Vancouver and contact person with the Historical Vancouver Building Permits Database that is managed by Heritage Vancouver.
This is Granville Street. The image was made from elevation near the intersection with Georgia; the camera was facing south. The Vancouver block, Castle Hotel, and the Orpheum and Capitol Theatres are visible (among other landmarks).
As of today’s date, CVA identifies this image as follows:
CVA 1184-992. Crowd Gathered on West Georgia to Watch a Parade. 1942? Jack Lindsay photo.
I suppose one might argue that this description isn’t entirely inaccurate, since there are some people on the sidewalk facing Georgia. But, in fact, none of Georgia Street is visible in the photo and the principal street plainly is Granville (and that’s where most of the crowd is located that is visible in this image).
Image #2
This is Georgia Street. It was made from close to street level roughly from the intersection with Bute Street; the camera was facing east. The Georgia Medical-Dental Building features prominently on the left side of the street; the Hotel Vancouver looms on the right side with the Ritz Hotel and Begg Motors also visible.
CVA identifies this image as:
CVA 1184-1387. Armoured Car Passing Crowds on Burrard Street During a Military Parade. Oct. 1942. Jack Lindsay photo.
The parade travelled down Burrard Street, too, but certainly not exclusively.
Image #3
This is West Hastings Street at the intersection with Granville Street. The image was made from a standing position in the middle of Hastings, just west of Granville; the camera was facing east. Landmarks in the image include two classic temple banks on opposite corners (NE and SE), the extant RBC and the then-Commerce Bank (today, Birks).
CVA identifies this image as:
CVA 1184-3445. View of the 600 Block West Georgia. 1945? Jack Lindsay photo.
I will show below three City of Vancouver Archives (CVA) photos. Each photo has been wrongly identified by CVA.
Your challenge (if I may borrow from the theme of a 1950s-80s U.S. television network game show) is to correctly Name Those Streets! You have 24 hours in which to enter your responses. I will post the correct locations then. (Sorry, there is no cash prize; the only prize is the satisfaction of knowing that you have bested CVA!)
![MAP 780 - [Map of Pioneer Place showing the area deeded to the City of Vancouver by the C.P.R.] 1895](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/map-780-map-of-pioneer-place-showing-the-area-deeded-to-the-city-of-vancouver-by-the-c.p.r.-1895.jpg)
![Mon P32.1 - [Women in roller skates around the Queen Victoria Memorial Fountain] ca 1940](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/mon-p32.1-women-in-roller-skates-around-the-queen-victoria-memorial-fountain-ca-1940.jpg)
![CVA 677-167 - Drinking fountain at Powell and Carrall Streets [Maple Tree monument] 1928](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/cva-677-167-drinking-fountain-at-powell-and-carrall-streets-maple-tree-monument-1928.jpg)
![CVA 447-322 - Empire Building [601 West Hastings Street] 1951 W E Frost](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/cva-447-322-empire-building-601-west-hastings-street-1951-w-e-frost.jpg)
It isn’t clear just what Haines was occupied doing when he first came to Canada. There is some evidence in Alberta records that he homesteaded near Medicine Hat in 1910. There are unsubstantiated family tales about him working in the U.S. and Canada. He spent some of the war years in the Canadian forces. He was injured in an automobile accident in France and was subsequently discharged. In 1917, there is evidence that he was conducting Winnipeg’s Imperial Theatre Orchestra (which, in later years, became the Majestic and, later still, the Rialto). Whether he remained in Winnipeg during the ’20s or was elsewhere, isn’t clear. But it is plain from the Vancouver directory that in 1931, he had ‘gone west’ and was living in Vancouver at 905 Davie; and he had a studio in Room 211 of the Empire Building.
![CVA 99-3749 - [Georgia] Medical Dental Building [at 925 West Georgia Street] 1929 Stuart Thomson photo](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/cva-99-3749-georgia-medical-dental-building-at-925-west-georgia-street-1929-stuart-thomson-photo.jpg)
![Bu P179 - [Exterior Georgia] Medical and Dental Bldg. Vancouver BC [925 West Georgia Street and parking garage under construction] 1929 Leonard Frank photo.](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/bu-p179-exterior-georgia-medical-and-dental-bldg-vancouver-bc-925-west-georgia-street-and-parking-garage-under-construction-1929-leonard-frank-photo.jpg)
![CVA 789-76 - [Hastings and Richards after heavy snowfall] 1916](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/cva-789-76-hastings-and-richards-after-heavy-snowfall-1916.jpg)
![CVA 1495-32 - [David Spencer's Department Store building on Hastings Street] 193-](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/cva-1495-32-david-spencers-department-store-building-on-hastings-street-193.jpg)
![CVA 99-2271 - Taken for Duker and Shaw Billboards Ltd. [Hastings Street looking east from Seymour Street] ca 1926 Stuart Thomson](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/cva-99-2271-taken-for-duker-and-shaw-billboards-ltd-hastings-street-looking-east-from-seymour-street-ca-1926-stuart-thomson.jpg)
![CVA 586-4015 - Street scene [outside David Spencer Limited - 515 West Hastings Street] Sept 1945 Don Coltman](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/cva-586-4015-street-scene-outside-david-spencer-limited-515-west-hastings-street-sept-1945-don-coltman.jpg)
![CVA 1495-12 - [Spencer's Department Store ] arcade [window display] 1926 Harry Bullen](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/cva-1495-12-spencers-department-store-arcade-window-display-1926-harry-bullen.jpg)
![CVA 1495-36 - [Spencer's Department Store window display] 193- Dominion Photo](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/cva-1495-36-spencers-department-store-window-display-193-dominion-photo.jpg)
![1885 Wat P38 - [View of Brockton Point from the foot of Thurlow Street] L A Hamilton](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/1885-wat-p38-view-of-brockton-point-from-the-foot-of-thurlow-street-l-a-hamilton.jpg)
![CVA 780-415 - [Buildings along Nelson Street at] Thurlow [Street]1966-2](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/cva-780-415-buildings-along-nelson-street-at-thurlow-street1966-2.jpg)
My very good friend, 
![CVA 1504-10 - [An unidentified shoe company's annual family outing] ca1920 J W Freeston](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/cva-1504-10-an-unidentified-shoe-companys-annual-family-outing-ca1920-j-w-freeston.jpg)
![Bu N332 - [Windsor Theatre at 25th Avenue and Main Street] 1927? W J Moore](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/bu-n332-windsor-theatre-at-25th-avenue-and-main-street-1927-w-j-moore.jpg)
![Bu N331 - [Kerrisdale Theatre building at 2136 West 41st Avenue] 1927 W J Moore](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/bu-n331-kerrisdale-theatre-building-at-2136-west-41st-avenue-1927-w-j-moore.jpg)
![CVA 1385-3 - [O.B. Allan store, corner of Granville and Pender Streets] 1965 or earlier](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/cva-1385-3-o.b.-allan-store-corner-of-granville-and-pender-streets-1965-or-earlier.jpg)
![CVA 1184-1129 - [Sculptor at work] 1940-48 Jack Lindsay](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/cva-1184-1129-sculptor-at-work-1940-48-jack-lindsay.jpg)
![CVA 1184-1130 - [Sculptor at work in elaborately decorated studio] 1940-48 Jack LIndsay (is this Beatrice Lennie??)](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/cva-1184-1130-sculptor-at-work-in-elaborately-decorated-studio-1940-48-jack-lindsay-is-this-beatrice-lennie.jpg)
![CVA 99-123 - Australian XI [group photo, poss. S. Thomson on right in bowler hat] ca 1911 Stuart Thomson photo.](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/cva-99-123-australian-xi-group-photo-poss-s-thomson-on-right-in-bowler-hat-ca-1911-stuart-thomson-photo.jpg)
![Str P82 - [A man in a wheelbarrow is pushed by the loser of a bet regarding the United States presidential election] 1892 Bailey Bros](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/str-p82-a-man-in-a-wheelbarrow-is-pushed-by-the-loser-of-a-bet-regarding-the-united-states-presidential-election-1892-bailey-bros.jpg)
![Ch P95 - [Exterior of Malvina [G]oudron hardware (formerly First Baptist Church) on Westminister Avenue] ca 1890 Harry T Devine](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/ch-p95-exterior-of-malvina-goudron-hardware-formerly-first-baptist-church-on-westminister-avenue-ca-1890-harry-t-devine-1.jpg)
![Be P99 - [Greer's Beach (Kitsilano Beach)] ca 1900](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/be-p99-greers-beach-kitsilano-beach-ca-1900.jpg)
![CVA 447-253 - CNR [Canadian National Railway] Station 1973 W E Frost-2](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/cva-447-253-cnr-canadian-national-railway-station-1973-w-e-frost-2.jpg)
![CVA 1184-3471 - [Board of Trade members watching a woman on stage at a Christmas in June luncheon at the Cave cabaret] 1948 Jack Lindsay](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/cva-1184-3471-board-of-trade-members-watching-a-woman-on-stage-at-a-christmas-in-june-luncheon-at-the-cave-cabaret-1948-jack-lindsay.jpg)
![CVA 260-1136.1 - [Men on a sailboat]ca1918 James Crookall-rook2](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cva-260-1136.1-men-on-a-sailboatca1918-james-crookall-rook2.jpg)
![SGN 68 - [Men standing with paint buckets and brushes outside J.C. Rowley House and Sign Painting, 508 West Pender Street] ca 1894](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/sgn-68-men-standing-with-paint-buckets-and-brushes-outside-j.c.-rowley-house-and-sign-painting-508-west-pender-street-ca-1894.jpg)
![CVA 1184-2842 - [B.C. Telephone operator] 1940-48 Jack Lindsay.](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/cva-1184-2842-b.c.-telephone-operator-1940-48-jack-lindsay..jpg)
Returned Soldiers Club
Our Sailors: Tag days were held in 1916, ’17, and ’18 for “Our Sailors”.
![Str P258 - [The south side of Robson Street looking east from Howe Street] 1948 O F Landauer photo](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/str-p258-the-south-side-of-robson-street-looking-east-from-howe-street-1948-o-f-landauer-photo.jpg)
![cva 99-29 - [australia boarding house, 776 seymour street] ca 1915 stuart thomson](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/cva-99-29-australia-boarding-house-776-seymour-street-ca-1915-stuart-thomson.jpg)
![str p306 - [major j.s. matthews and william n. cooper examine the spot where the first survey peg was driven to mark the c.p.r. townsite in 1885] bill cunningham photo, 1953.](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/str-p306-major-j.s.-matthews-and-william-n.-cooper-examine-the-spot-where-the-first-survey-peg-was-driven-to-mark-the-c.p.r.-townsite-in-1885-bill-cunningham-photo-1953..jpg)
![Mon P63.1 - [Miss Isobel O. Hamilton and J.S. Matthews unveil a bronze plaque to commemorate Lauchlan Alexander Hamilton] 1953 W J Dennett photo](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/mon-p63.1-miss-isobel-o.-hamilton-and-j.s.-matthews-unveil-a-bronze-plaque-to-commemorate-lauchlan-alexander-hamilton-1953-w-j-dennett-photo.jpg)
![CVA 586-3202 - [Walkway over Georgia Street] 1944 Don Coltman](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/CVA-586-3202-Walkway-over-Georgia-Street-1944-Don-Coltman.jpg)
Hobbit House was the brain child of 
From to a Google search, I learned that Mr. Blakstad had been living (since shortly after painting the “untitled” image) on the island of 
![2011-130.0269 - Dignitaries [8 of 15] Feb 1976 (Al Clapp, PET, Barney Danson, Hugh Keenleyside, Ron Basford) Erol Baykal photo](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/2011-130-0269-dignitaries-8-of-15-feb-1976-al-clapp-pet-barney-danson-hugh-keenleyside-ron-basford-erol-baykal-photo.jpg)
![2011-130.0408 - Feb 9th Trudeau on site family + 2nds [1 of 11] Feb 1976 Erol Baykal photo](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/2011-130-0408-feb-9th-trudeau-on-site-family-2nds-1-of-11-feb-1976-erol-baykal-photo.jpg)
![CVA 677-178 - [Horace] Harpur's Orchestra ca 1900](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/cva-677-178-horace-harpurs-orchestra-ca-19001.jpg)
The first year that mention is made of Horace Harpur in Vancouver directories is 1891; so he seems to have come to the city as an adult of about 22 years. It isn’t clear what musical training he received before emigrating. His occupation is described in the 1891 directory as a “musician” at Carter’s Temple of Music — located, for awhile, at the New York Block on Granville near Georgia St.
While his teaching gig was a source of steady income, Harpur became best known from the late 1890s until the outbreak of the War, as the leader of “Harpur’s Orchestra.” This was essentially a dance band of four or sometimes five players. One of the earliest appearances of a band of which Harpur was part (but not identified as the “leader”, per se) was at a reception held in Vancouver for the fifth Canadian Prime Minister, Sir Mackenzie Bowell in 1895. The band comprised, in addition to Harpur, Fred Dyke, W. Brand, Fred Cope, and J. Grant. The orchestra’s play list for the reception was included in the press account of the reception in the Vancouver Daily World. This was unusual. Equally uncommon was for the press to report who was playing in the band. The only other occasion I could find (in addition to the 1895 reception) was the 1902 Easter Ball sponsored by the Victorian Order of Nurses: H. W. Harpur (piano), John Cronshaw (clarinet), Charles Baylis (cornet), and F. Highland (bass) (VDW 2 April 1902, p. 5).
![CVA 1376-17 - White Spot [drive in] restaurant [850 Burrard Street] 1952? Werner Leggenhager](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/cva-1376-17-white-spot-drive-in-restaurant-850-burrard-street-1952-werner-leggenhager.jpg)
![Crop pf CVA 2008-022.045 - [Downtown Vancouver street scene with BC Hydro building] 1958](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/crop-pf-cva-2008-022-045-downtown-vancouver-street-scene-with-bc-hydro-building-1958.jpg)
One of my fond recollections of Professor Cairns (and he would always be that to me —never Alan!) were his regular quotations of baseball great, 
![CVA 99-2592 - [Richards Street scene (showing telephone poles taken for Col. Tait)] 1931 Stuart Thomson](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/cva-99-2592-richards-street-scene-showing-telephone-poles-taken-for-col-tait-1931-stuart-thomson1.jpg)
![CVA 99-2593 - [Richards Street scene (showing telephone poles taken for Col. Tait)] 1931 Stuart Thomson](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/cva-99-2593-richards-street-scene-showing-telephone-poles-taken-for-col-tait-1931-stuart-thomson1.jpg)
![CVA 371-1031 - [The rock crusher at Little Mountain Quarry] 1908-10](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/cva-371-1031-the-rock-crusher-at-little-mountain-quarry-1908-10.jpg)
![Duke of C and Y P21 - [The Courthouse decorated for the reception of the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall and York] Sept 1901](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/duke-of-c-and-y-p21-the-courthouse-decorated-for-the-reception-of-the-duke-and-duchess-of-cornwall-and-york-sept-19011.jpg)
![CVA 99-3895 - Hotel Pennsylvania [at 412 Carrall Street] 1931 Stuart Thomson](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/cva-99-3895-hotel-pennsylvania-at-412-carrall-street-1931-stuart-thomson.jpg)
![CVA 99-3455 - The Original Old Country Fish and Chips store [6 East Hastings Street] 1923 Stuart Thomson](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/cva-99-3455-22the-original22-old-country-fish-and-chips-store-6-east-hastings-street-1923-stuart-thomson.jpg)
The 
![S-5-15 - English Bay [and Beach Avenue West of Chilco Street looking east] ca1896](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/s-5-15-english-bay-and-beach-avenue-west-of-chilco-street-looking-east-ca1896.jpg)
![SGN 175B - [Group of men and women assembled for a picnic on the lawn in front of the Vancouver Waterworks Company house in Stanley Park] 1890?](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/sgn-175b-group-of-men-and-women-assembled-for-a-picnic-on-the-lawn-in-front-of-the-vancouver-waterworks-company-house-in-stanley-park-1890.jpg)
![LGN 686 - [Men and women assembled for picnic in clearing] 189- Norman Caple-2](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/lgn-686-men-and-women-assembled-for-picnic-in-clearing-189-norman-caple-2.jpg)
![SGN 965 - [Men and women eating strawberries at a picnic in Stanley Park] 189-?](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/sgn-965-men-and-women-eating-strawberries-at-a-picnic-in-stanley-park-189.jpg)
![CVA 371-527 - [J.B. Leyland] 193- King Studio](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/cva-371-527-j-b-leyland-193-king-studio.jpg)
![Mil P107 - [Military honour guard on Georgia Street between Seymour Street and Richards Street] 1918-21 Stuart Thomson](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/mil-p107-military-honour-guard-on-georgia-street-between-seymour-street-and-richards-street-1918-21-stuart-thomson.jpg)
![SGN 1457 - [News-Advertiser publishing office building at the corner of Cambie and Pender Streets] 1900? Norman Caple](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/sgn-1457-news-advertiser-publishing-office-building-at-the-corner-of-cambie-and-pender-streets-1900-norman-caple.jpg)
![Bu N516 - [The Province buildings at Pender and Cambie Streets] 192-? (Date is CVA-attributed)](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/bu-n516-the-22province22-buildings-at-pender-and-cambie-streets-192-date-is-cva-attributed.jpg)
The proprietor of this company was Victor David. The firm seems to have had its start in the early 1930s. The firm remained in business at least until 1955 (when access to VPL’s online directory information peters out) and possibly several years later. There is some evidence that David died in 1976.
![CVA 152-1.094 - [Construction progress photograph of the third CPR station] 26 JUne 1914](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/cva-152-1-094-construction-progress-photograph-of-the-third-cpr-station-26-june-1914-e1522297766125.jpg)
![CVA 152-1.214 - [Construction progress photograph of the third CPR station] 28 April 1914](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/cva-152-1-214-construction-progress-photograph-of-the-third-cpr-station-28-april-1914.jpg)
![NOPE ! Looking EAstward - CVA 152-1.098 - [Construction progress photograph of the third CPR station] 24 NOv 1914 - View is looking west along Cordova St. Photograph shows passenger plat](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/nope-looking-eastward-cva-152-1-098-construction-progress-photograph-of-the-third-cpr-station-24-nov-1914-view-is-looking-west-along-cordova-st-photograph-shows-passenger-plat.jpg)
![CVA 152-1.217 - [Main waiting room at third CPR station] c1914](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/cva-152-1-217-main-waiting-room-at-third-cpr-station-c1914.jpg)
![CVA 152-1.217 - [Main waiting room at third CPR station] c1914](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/cva-152-1-217-main-waiting-room-at-third-cpr-station-c19141.jpg)
![CVA 152-1.221 - [Employee locker room at the third CPR station] c1914](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/cva-152-1-221-employee-locker-room-at-the-third-cpr-station-c1914.jpg)
![CVA 152-1.224 - [Office at the third CPR station] c1913](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/cva-152-1-224-office-at-the-third-cpr-station-c1913.jpg)
![CVA 1477-151 - [Visit of Australian Premier Bruce] ca1926 Dominion Photo](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/cva-1477-151-visit-of-australian-premier-bruce-ca1926-dominion-photo.jpg)
![CVA 780-40 - [View of the Richmond Apartments and the rear of the Hotel Vancouver] Feb 1966](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/cva-780-40-view-of-the-richmond-apartments-and-the-rear-of-the-hotel-vancouver-feb-1966.jpg)
![PAN N158 - [View of the reclamation of False Creek Flats showing the reconstruction of Main Street at the bascule bridge] June 30, 1921 W J Moore-2](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/pan-n158-view-of-the-reclamation-of-false-creek-flats-showing-the-reconstruction-of-main-street-at-the-bascule-bridge-june-30-1921-w-j-moore-2.jpg)
![Str P67 - [View of the corner of Hastings Street at Cambie Street] Bailey Bros. ca1895](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/str-p67-view-of-the-corner-of-hastings-street-at-cambie-street-bailey-bros-ca1895.jpg)
![M-3-27.5 - [Flack Block, northeast corner of Hastings and Cambie] 190-?](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/m-3-27-5-flack-block-northeast-corner-of-hastings-and-cambie-190.jpg)
![Bo P365.5 - [Officers of the Chilean training ship Presidente Pinto at cenotaph wreath ceremony] 1952 Charles Wishart](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/bo-p365-5-officers-of-the-chilean-training-ship-22presidente-pinto22-at-cenotaph-wreath-ceremony-1952-charles-wishart.jpg)
![CVA 371-865 - [Exterior of The Rustic Dining Rooms Lodging (house) at 318 Cordova Street] c 1901](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/cva-371-865-exterior-of-the-rustic-dining-rooms-lodging-house-at-318-cordova-street-c-1901.jpg)
![Hot P5 - [Interior of Poodle Dog Hotel bar on Cordova between Cambie and Abbott Streets] ca1898](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/hot-p5-interior-of-poodle-dog-hotel-bar-on-cordova-between-cambie-and-abbott-streets-ca1898.jpg)
![CVA 800-2575 - [Description in Progress] n.d. Alan J. Ingram photo. (DUns tunn?)](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/cva-800-2575-description-in-progress-n-d-alan-j-ingram-photo-duns-tunn.jpg)
![Children of G.E. Corbould. - [ca. 1895]. S J Thompson. Grace C is sitting at far right with dog on her lap. Record ID 18282 New Westminster Archives](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/children-of-g-e-corbould-ca-1895-s-j-thompson-grace-c-is-sitting-at-far-right-with-dog-on-her-lap-record-id-18282-new-westminster-archives.jpg)
![CVA 1184-1734 - [Al Deeming Union Oil dealer service station] 1940-48 JAck Lindsay-2](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/cva-1184-1734-al-deeming-union-oil-dealer-service-station-1940-48-jack-lindsay-2.jpg)
![Sp P6 - [The Vancouver Eleven Cricket Team on the Cambie Street Grounds on Dominion Day] July 1, 1888 (incldg - I am pretty sure - Al Larwill (NOT Larwikk)_](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/sp-p6-the-vancouver-eleven-cricket-team-on-the-cambie-street-grounds-on-dominion-day-july-1-1888-incldg-i-am-pretty-sure-al-larwill-not-22larwikk22_.jpg)
![Str P77 - [F.X. Martin's groceries and provisions, A.E. Beck Law Office and a building society in the Unit Block Cordova Street] ca 1890](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/str-p77-f-x-martins-groceries-and-provisions-a-e-beck-law-office-and-a-building-society-in-the-unit-block-cordova-street-ca-1890.jpg)
![CVA 1477-169 - [Large group of boys with lunch bags standing in front of building] 19--3](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/cva-1477-169-large-group-of-boys-with-lunch-bags-standing-in-front-of-building-19-3.jpg)
![CVA 70-32 - Sun Tower, exterior [Beatty Street facade] detail, 1973. Art Grice-2](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/cva-70-32-sun-tower-exterior-beatty-street-facade-detail-1973-art-grice-2.jpg)
![CVA 447-97 - Molson Bank Bldg [N.E. Corner Seymour and Hastings Streets] 1973 Walter E Frost](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/cva-447-97-molson-bank-bldg-n-e-corner-seymour-and-hastings-streets-1973-walter-e-frost.jpg)
![LGN 1052 - [View of Mount Pleasant looking north from Ninth Avenue (Broadway) near Quebec Street] 1892-1896](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/lgn-1052-view-of-mount-pleasant-looking-north-from-ninth-avenue-broadway-near-quebec-street-1892-1896.jpg)
![CVA - Port P193 - [Fire Chief John Howe Carlisle awarded the 'Good Citizen' medal by the Native Sons of B.C.] 1922 Stuart Thomson](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/port-p193-fire-chief-john-howe-carlisle-awarded-the-22good-citizen22-medal-by-the-native-sons-of-b-c-1922-stuart-thomson.jpg)
![CVA - Port P140 - [Former Fire Chief J.H. Carlisle after receiving the King's Police Medal from His Honour W.C. Nichol, Lieutenant governor of B.C.] April 1923 Stuart Thomson photo](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/port-p140-former-fire-chief-j-h-carlisle-after-receiving-the-kings-police-medal-from-his-honour-w-c-nichol-lieutenant-governor-of-b-c-april-1923-stuart-thomson-photo.jpg)
![CVA 677-503 - Front office, Cowan and Brookhouse [Printing and Publishing], Labor Temple [411 Dunsmuir Street] ca 1919 Canadian Photo Co.](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/cva-677-503-front-office-cowan-and-brookhouse-printing-and-publishing-labor-temple-411-dunsmuir-street-ca-1919-canadian-photo-co.jpg)
![CVA 677-504 - [Printing room] Cowan and Brookhouse Printing and Publishing [411 Dunsmuir Street] ca 1916](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/cva-677-504-printing-room-cowan-and-brookhouse-printing-and-publishing-411-dunsmuir-street-ca-1916.jpg)
![CVA 677-828 - Jos. Niles, H. Geo. Bartley, and H. Cowan [standing outside office of] the Independent, 312 Homer Street 1900](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/cva-677-828-jos-niles-h-geo-bartley-and-h-cowan-standing-outside-office-of-the-independent-312-homer-street-1900.jpg)
![Ch P95 - [Exterior of Malvina Coudron hardware (formerly First Baptist Church) on Westminister Avenue] ca1890 Harry T. Devine](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/ch-p95-exterior-of-malvina-coudron-hardware-formerly-first-baptist-church-on-westminister-avenue-ca1890-harry-t-devine.jpg)
Another clue that this was an Edmonton photo was the logo on the telephone booth. Edmonton had its own municipally-owned phone company until it was swallowed by TELUS in 1995: Edmonton Telephones. (This gently 
![CVA 371-801 - [Ken Waites and Templeton High School's Archivists Club] ca 1936](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/cva-371-801-ken-waites-and-templeton-high-schools-22archivists-club22-ca-1936.jpg)
![Van Sc P114 - [The Woodward's Department store beacon] ca 1938.](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/van-sc-p114-the-woodwards-department-store-beacon-ca-1938.jpg){kind=tracking}
The advocate of this proposal, W. T. Farrell, had been responsible for the construction in 1903 of the first Capilano Suspension Bridge (450-feet long). It is interesting that the office space of Farrell and that of his draughtsman, F. J. L. Tytler was in the same building (522 West Pender Street). In Room 8 at that address, Tytler maintained his civil engineering consulting office and there he also fulfilled his responsibilities as Principal of the Technical School of Civil Engineering & Surveying. Tytler didn’t have many years left to live following the conclusion of this proposal. In March 1912, it was reported that he “dropped dead on St. Andrews avenue, North Vancouver.” (Chilliwack Progress, 6 March 1912).
![Bu P264 - [Exterior of Fred Ackers - Tobacconist and shoeshine - 132 Cordova Street] cxa 1895](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Bu-P264-Exterior-of-Fred-Ackers-Tobacconist-and-shoeshine-132-Cordova-Street-cxa-1895.jpg)
![Str P7 - Cordova Street [looking west from Carrall Street] - July 1886 - five weeks after the fire. July 1886](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/str-p7-cordova-street-looking-west-from-carrall-street-july-1886-five-weeks-after-the-fire.-july-1886.jpg)
The chap whose likeness appears to the left is Joe Zezula¹. He and (his brother?) Walter Zezula were the original owners of Front Street Meat Market. There were two locations of Front Street. The initial location was on the 700 block of Front Street in New Westminster (thus explaining the name). This shop seems to have been started in 1953. The Front Street Meat Market in New Westminster endured at least until 1963. However, only in 1953 was the New Westminster shop owned by the Zezulas (and starting in 1955, it had been moved off of Front Street to a location a block away, on Columbia). Starting in 1954, it seems that the Zezula brothers left the Greater Vancouver area.
(Sonny) Wosk, whose portrait is on the right² (of the Wosks who owned the furniture shop on the south side of Hastings). The timeline seems to be as follows: Sonny acquired the original Front Street Meat Market from the Zezulas in 1954.
![CVA 99-4954 - I.B.M. [International Business Machines Company store (515 West Georgia Street) at night] 1936 Stuart Thomson photo.](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/cva-99-4954-i-b-m-international-business-machines-company-store-515-west-georgia-street-at-night-1936-stuart-thomson-photo.jpg)
![CVA 447-145 - St. Andrews United Church [Georgia and Richards Streets] 1936 Walter E Frost photo.](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/cva-447-145-st-andrews-united-church-georgia-and-richards-streets-1936-walter-e-frost-photo.jpg)
Her Saturday service was, therefore, led by Rev. P. Clifton Parker (of the long-gone 
Vancouver Daily World on August 17, 1908. An intriguing aspect of the piece, to me, was that Shields, who was near the beginning of his career as an Ontario Baptist preacher of note (later, pastor at Jarvis Street Baptist in Toronto, and, ultimately, a leader of the Canadian Baptist fundamentalist movement who would contribute to the mid-1920s strife that would split the denomination), was given much less attention (in terms of column-inches) than the to-me-unknown singer, A. E. Greenlaw, who is described as “one of Canada’s greatest singers”!
![CVA 1184-699 - [Oldest boarding house in Vancouver, corner of Homer and Pender Streets] 1943 Jack Lindsay photo](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/cva-1184-699-oldest-boarding-house-in-vancouver-corner-of-homer-and-pender-streets-1943-jack-lindsay-photo.jpg)
![CVA M-11-62 - A West End home [probably on the 1100 block of Georgia Street] 191- Richard Broadbridge photo](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/cva-m-11-62-a-west-end-home-probably-on-the-1100-block-of-georgia-street-191-richard-broadbridge-photo.jpg)
![CVA 780-288 - [Canadian Government RCMP Fairmont Barracks at] 4949 Heather [Street]. 1976.](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/cva-780-288-canadian-government-rcmp-fairmont-barracks-at-4949-heather-street-1976.jpg)
![CVA 1184-2673 - [Man addressing the congregation at a Salvation Army service] 1940-48 Jack Lindsay (sic Location- FBC Vanc)](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/cva-1184-2673-man-addressing-the-congregation-at-a-salvation-army-service-1940-48-jack-lindsay-sic-location-fbc-vanc.jpg)
![CVA 1184-2672 - [Choir singing at a Salvation Army Service] 1940-48 Jack Lindsay photo (Sic - FBC Van location)](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/cva-1184-2672-choir-singing-at-a-salvation-army-service-1940-48-jack-lindsay-photo-sic-fbc-van-location.jpg)
![CVA 1184-2675 - [Congregation and band at a Salvation Army service] 1940-48 Jack Lindsay photo](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/cva-1184-2675-congregation-and-band-at-a-salvation-army-service-1940-48-jack-lindsay-photo.jpg)
![CVA 780-41 - [Houses along] Helmcken St[reet] 1966](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/cva-780-41-houses-along-helmcken-street-1966.jpg)
![CVA 1495-33 - What We Have We'll Hold! [David Spencer's Ltd. employees and unidentified man during gasoline strike of April 1940]_](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/cva-1495-33-what-we-have-well-hold-david-spencers-ltd-employees-and-unidentified-man-during-gasoline-strike-of-april-1940_.jpg)
![St Pk N105 - [John C. Thomas and Mrs. Gordon Hilker during the stage and stands construction for Vancouver's Diamond Jubilee celebration at Brockton Point] 1946](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/st-pk-n105-john-c-thomas-and-mrs-gordon-hilker-during-the-stage-and-stands-construction-for-vancouvers-diamond-jubilee-celebration-at-brockton-point-1946.jpg)
![St Pk N103 - [John C. Thomas playing Captain George Vancouver at a pageant to celebrate Vancouver's Diamond Jubilee at Brockton Point] 1946.](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/st-pk-n103-john-c-thomas-playing-captain-george-vancouver-at-a-pageant-to-celebrate-vancouvers-diamond-jubilee-at-brockton-point-1946.jpg)
![Port P1449.2 - [Frank Hart speaking to other pioneers gathered for the Maple Tree Monument unveiling on the southwest corner of Carrall Street and Water Street] - incldg Charles Gardner Johnson, K. SIlverman, Peter Larson - 1925](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/port-p1449-2-frank-hart-speaking-to-other-pioneers-gathered-for-the-maple-tree-monument-unveiling-on-the-southwest-corner-of-carrall-street-and-water-street-incldg-charles-gardner.jpg)
![Mon P77.2 - [Charles Marega unveils Maple Tree Memorial] 1925 Stuart Thomson photo](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/mon-p77-2-charles-marega-unveils-maple-tree-memorial-1925-stuart-thomson-photo.jpg)
![Port P1449.1 - [Pioneers gathered for the Maple Tree Monument unveiling on the southwest corner of Carrall Street and Water Street] 1925](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/port-p1449-1-pioneers-gathered-for-the-maple-tree-monument-unveiling-on-the-southwest-corner-of-carrall-street-and-water-street-1925.jpg)
![99-29-15 - [Bowmac sign at 1154 West Broadway, Vancouver, B.C.] Barbara Elizabeth Wilson 1982-82](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/99-29-15-bowmac-sign-at-1154-west-broadway-vancouver-b-c-barbara-elizabeth-wilson-1982-82.jpg)
![Crop of CVA 586-2130 - Victory Loan parade [on Burrard Street] 1942](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/crop-of-cva-586-2130-victory-loan-parade-on-burrard-street-1942.png)
![Str P221 - [A horse-drawn lumber wagon at the corner of Hastings Street and Cambie Street] 1888](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/str-p221-a-horse-drawn-lumber-wagon-at-the-corner-of-hastings-street-and-cambie-street-1888.jpg)
![CVA 1376-247 - [Fraser Boathouse, west of Kitsilano Pool] 1938 Cecil N. Akrigg photo](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/cva-1376-247-fraser-boathouse-west-of-kitsilano-pool-1938-cecil-n-akrigg-photo.jpg)
![CVA 99-3465 - Dr. [Trevellyn] Sleeth's [Veterinary] Hospital [688 Seymour Street] - Operation on Dog 1923 S Thomson](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/cva-99-3465-dr-trevellyn-sleeths-veterinary-hospital-688-seymour-street-operation-on-dog-1923-s-thomson.jpg)
![CVA 1399-523 - [Photograph of arena stage construction] ca 1925 Dominion Photo](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/cva-1399-523-photograph-of-arena-stage-construction-ca-1925-dominion-photo.jpg)
![CVA 780-768 - [View of West Cordova Street from Carrall Street] 196--2](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/cva-780-768-view-of-west-cordova-street-from-carrall-street-196-2.jpg)
![Bu N135 - [O'Brien Hall, Metropolitan Block and the De Beck Building, southeast corner of Homer and Hastings Streets] 1940.](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/bu-n135-obrien-hall-metropolitan-block-and-the-de-beck-building-southeast-corner-of-homer-and-hastings-streets-1940.jpg)
![Port P552 - [Robert MacKay Fripp] ca1888 J. D. Hall photo.](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/port-p552-robert-mackay-fripp-ca1888-j-d-hall-photo.jpg)
Yesterday, I was looking at a printout of 
![CVA 152-1.180 - [Construction progress photograph of the CPR Pier %22A-B%22 extension] July 1913.](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/cva-152-1-180-construction-progress-photograph-of-the-cpr-pier-22a-b22-extension-july-1913.jpg)
![CVA 1184-639 - [Garbage and garbage containers at the slums in the 300 block East Cordova] 1943 Jack Lindsay photo-2](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/cva-1184-639-garbage-and-garbage-containers-at-the-slums-in-the-300-block-east-cordova-1943-jack-lindsay-photo-2.jpg)
![CVA 1184-2612 - [Tenement building] 1940-48 Jack Lindsay photo-2](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/cva-1184-2612-tenement-building-1940-48-jack-lindsay-photo-2.jpg)
![CVA 1184-2615 - [View of the rear of a tenement house] 1940-48 Jack Lindsay photo-2](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/cva-1184-2615-view-of-the-rear-of-a-tenement-house-1940-48-jack-lindsay-photo-2.jpg)
providing chicken products to hard-working, hungry Vancouverites. He hung his shingle at Vancouver’s farmer’s market, known then as the City Market which was originally located, from 1908 until before 1925 (when the building was destroyed by fire) roughly where ScienceWorld is today.
![LGN 487 - [People entering streetcar on Main Street at 25th Avenue] 1912 ? W J Moore photo](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/lgn-487-people-entering-streetcar-on-main-street-at-25th-avenue-1912-w-j-moore-photo.jpg)
![CVA 789-74 - Davie & Granville [after heavy snowfall] 1916_](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/cva-789-74-davie-granville-after-heavy-snowfall-1916_.jpg)
![CVA 99-5227 - [Unidentified group at a dance] ca1922 Stuart Thomson photo](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/cva-99-5227-unidentified-group-at-a-dance-ca1922-stuart-thomson-photo.jpg)
![CVA 99-5231 - [Unidentified group in costume in ballroom] 192-? Stuart Thomson photo](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/cva-99-5231-unidentified-group-in-costume-in-ballroom-192-stuart-thomson-photo.jpg)
![CVA 99-5296 - Vancouver Daily Sun Staff 2nd Annual Dance Lester Court [1024 Davie Street] Dec. 13th 1918 Stuart Thomson photo](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/cva-99-5296-vancouver-daily-sun-staff-2nd-annual-dance-lester-court-1024-davie-street-dec-13th-1918-stuart-thomson-photo.jpg)
![CVA 99-5250 - Firemen's 25th Annual Ball. Lester Court [1024 Davie Street] Nov. 14th 1923 Stuart Thomson photo](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/cva-99-5250-firemens-25th-annual-ball-lester-court-1024-davie-street-nov-14th-1923-stuart-thomson-photo.jpg)
![Bu P508.17 - [Exterior of the building at the South West corner of Davie and Burrard Streets] 1958 A L Yates photo](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/bu-p508-17-exterior-of-the-building-at-the-south-west-corner-of-davie-and-burrard-streets-1958-a-l-yates-photo.jpg)
![CVA 586-4174 - [Exterior of] Pacific Coast Fire Building [at 325] Howe Street 1946 Don Coltman photo](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/cva-586-4174-exterior-of-pacific-coast-fire-building-at-325-howe-street-1946-don-coltman-photo.jpg)
![CVA 99 - 3307 - Pacific Coast Fire Insurance Building [325 Howe Street] 1920 Stuart Thomson photo (INTERESTING VIEW FROM THE CPR TRACKS)](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/cva-99-3307-pacific-coast-fire-insurance-building-325-howe-street-1920-stuart-thomson-photo-interesting-view-from-the-cpr-tracks.jpg)
![CVA 6-11 - [Royal Train arrives at the foot of Howe Street for visit of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth] 1939 W B Shelly photo](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/cva-6-11-royal-train-arrives-at-the-foot-of-howe-street-for-visit-of-king-george-vi-and-queen-elizabeth-1939-w-b-shelly-photo.jpg)
![Crop of CVA 447-348 - 7th Ave and Gran.[ville] Sts. - and showing Roxy (formerly Fairview) Theatre 1964 W E Frost. photo-2](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/crop-of-cva-447-348-7th-ave-and-gran-ville-sts-and-showing-roxy-formerly-fairview-theatre-1964-w-e-frost-photo-2.jpg)
![CVA 780-26 – Belmont Grocery, Theatre Row, [at 999 Granville Street] 1969.](https://i0.wp.com/vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/cva-780-26-22belmont-grocery22-theatre-row-at-999-granville-street-19694.jpg?w=362&h=380&ssl=1 "CVA 780-26 - %22Belmont Grocery,%22 Theatre Row, [at 999 Granville Street] 1969")
![CVA 780-32 – [View of a] sign, storefront Quality Gifts, Theatre Row, [at 995 Granville Street] 1969.](https://i0.wp.com/vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/cva-780-32-view-of-a-sign-storefront-22quality-gifts22-theatre-row-at-995-granville-street-1969.jpg?w=270&h=380&ssl=1 "CVA 780-32 - [View of a] sign, storefront %22Quality Gifts,%22 Theatre Row, [at 995 Granville Street] 1969'")
![Crop of CVA 800-2100 - [Description in Progress] n.d. Alan J. Ingram photo](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/crop-of-cva-800-2100-description-in-progress-n-d-alan-j-ingram-photo.jpg)
![Crop of CVA 1184-3444 - [View of Hastings Street] 1945 Jack Lindsay photo](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/crop-of-cva-1184-3444-view-of-hastings-street-1945-jack-lindsay-photo.jpg)
![SGN 14 - [Businesses at 500 block of West Hastings Street] 189-? Charles S Bailey](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/sgn-14-businesses-at-500-block-of-west-hastings-street-189-charles-s-bailey.jpg)
![Crop of CVA 447-207 - [View of Canadian National Steamship wharf undre construction at the foot of Main St.] 1931? WE Frost photo](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/crop-of-cva-447-207-view-of-canadian-national-steamship-wharf-undre-construction-at-the-foot-of-main-st-1931-we-frost-photo.jpg)
![CVA 371-723 - [Houses on the north side of the 1900 Block of Pendrell Street] 191-](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/cva-371-723-houses-on-the-north-side-of-the-1900-block-of-pendrell-street-1911.jpg)
![CVA 1184-992 - [Crowd gathered on West Georgia (sic - Granville, in fact) to watch a parade] 1942 Jack Lindsay photo-2](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/cva-1184-992-crowd-gathered-on-west-georgia-sic-granville-in-fact-to-watch-a-parade-1942-jack-lindsay-photo-2.jpg)
![CVA 1184-1387 - [Armoured car passing crowds on Burrard (sic - Georgia Street, in fact) Street during a military parade] 1942 Jack Lindsay photo](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/cva-1184-1387-armoured-car-passing-crowds-on-burrard-sic-georgia-street-in-fact-street-during-a-military-parade-1942-jack-lindsay-photo.jpg)
![CVA 1184-3445 - [View of the 600 block West Georgia] (sic - West Hastings at Granville in fact) 1945? Jack Lindsay photo.](https://vanasitwas.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/cva-1184-3445-view-of-the-600-block-west-georgia-sic-west-hastings-at-granville-in-fact-1945-jack-lindsay-photo.jpg)
Vancouver As It Was: A Photo-Historical Journey 
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