~Y T BRITISH COLUMBIA History The British Columbia Historical Federation Magazine | Vol 47 No 4 Winter 2014. $7.00 QUESNEL'S "GERTRUDE FRASER" Ask any old-timer in Quesnel if there is a nurse who stands out in their memory and the answer is always "Gertrude Fraser." Quesnel Hospital Staff c. 1939-40, L to R. Gertrude Watt (later Fraser), Marion Ferry, Flora Fairweather, Dorothy Grice, Mrs. Smith and Mrs Barrett. A BC's most famous editorial cartoonist: JB Fitzmaurice. Cabinets of Curiosities: a porcelain shoe. H A celebration of the works of Major Allan Brooks. H After Pearl Harbor a murder case unfolded in Vancouver. :cm iCD HISTORY British Columbia History is published four times per year (Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter) by the British Columbia Historical Federation. ISSN: print 1710-7881 online 1710-792X Subscriptions: $20.00 per year (CDN Funds) USA: $32.00 (per year (CDN Funds) International: $44.00 per year (CDN Funds) Subscription & subscription information: BCHF c/o Magazine Association of BC #316 - 336 East 1st Avenue Vancouver, BC, V5T 4R6 email: subscriptions@bchistory.ca Phone: 604.688.1175 Single copies of recent issues are for sale at: - Caryall Books, Quesnel, BC - Gray Creek Store, Gray Creek, BC - Otter Books, Nelson, BC - Royal British Columbia Museum Shop, Victoria, BC - Touchstones Nelson: Museum of Art & History, Nelson, BC British Columbia History welcomes stories, studies, and news items dealing with any aspect of the history of British Columbia, and British Columbians. Please submit manuscripts for publication to the Editor, British Columbia History, Andrea Lister PO Box 21187, Maple Ridge BC V2X 1P7 email: bcheditor@bchistory.ca Submission guidelines are available at: bchistory.ca/journal/index.html Book reviews for British Columbia History, K. Jane Watt, Book Review Editor, BC History, Box 1053, Fort Langley, BC VIM 2S4 email: reviews@bchistory.ca ISSN: 1710-7881 Printed in Canada. Production Mail Registration Number 40025793 Publications Mail Registration No. 09835 We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Periodical Fund of the Department of Canadian Heritage. Canada British Columbia Historical Federation A charitable society under the Income Tax Act Organized 31 October 1922 PO Box 5254, Station B., Victoria BC V8R 6N4 www. bchistory.ca Under the Distinguished Patronage of The Honourable Judith Guichon, OBC Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia Honorary President: Jacqueline Gresko Are you an Undergraduate History Student? Each year, the British Columbia Historical Federation offers two W. Kaye Lamb Scholarships for student essays relating to the history of British Columbia. Prize for a student in the 1st or 2nd year is $750 Prize for a student in the 3rd or 4th year is $1,000 Eligibility The essay must be written by a student registered in a university or college in British Columbia. Candidates must submit their application for this scholarship by May 15th, 2014. See full rules and criteria on the BCHF website: http://bchistory.ca/awards/essay/index.html Read the story of Gertrude Fraser on page 5. Cover design: Bill Glasgow EDITORS Andrea Lister K. Jane Watt, Book Review Editor Sylvia Stopforth, Archives & Archivists READERS PANEL Janice Brown Catherine Magee Sandra Martins Erica Williams HISTORY COPY EDITORS Ronald Greene Catherine Magee Erica Williams Find us on Facebook While copyright in the journal as a whole is vested in the British Columbia Historical Federation, copyright of the individual articles belongs to their respective authors, and articles may be reproduced for personal use only. For reproduction for other purposes permission in writing of both author and publisher is required. •_Stv wivd/ i-&4*444& Published by the British Columbia Historical Federation | Winter 2014 | Vol. 47 No. 4 t^et&fogsrt&i. 5 My Sustainable Environmentalist Grandmother by Don Chutter Marion 'May' Walker was a woman ahead of her time — practising 'sustainable environmentalism' long before these terms came into common usage. 8Fitz and the Great War by Robin Anderson J.B. Fitzmaurice was BC's most famous editorial cartoonist during the first three decades of the 20th century. His best-remembered cartoons are from the period of the Great War. 1Q Quesnel's Gertrude Fraser ^ by Naomi Miller Ask any old-timer in Quesnel if there is a nurse who stands out in their memory. The answer is always "Gertrude Fraser." ^ C Race Rocks Lighthouse ^ ^ by John Whittaker ' A rare excursion to the historic Race Rocks Lighthouse/Provincial Ecological Reserve included sea lions and a history lesson about the value of this historic lighthouse. ^ Q After Pearl Harbor ^L 7 by Janet Mary Nicol After the attack on Pearl Harbor, a racially fueled murder case unfolds in Vancouver, forever altering the lives of two mothers. 40 Archives & Archivists by Barbara Bell; edited by Sylvia Stopforth Major Allan Brooks, famed ornithologist and wildlife illustrator, lived in the Okanagan for over 40 years. The Vernon Museum and Archives celebrates Brooks' work. 48 Cabinets of Curiosities by Brenda L. Smith A little porcelain shoe holds clues to Brenda L Smith's great-aunt Vera's life in Cloverdale before moving to the isolated Ocean Falls, BC. 3 Editor's Note Packaging History 4 Inbox Letters from Readers 42 From the Book Review Editor's Desk K. Jane Watt The Mug in the Mugshot 47 New Books by Small Presses BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Winter 2014 | Vol. 47 No. 4 1 British Columbia Historical Federation A charitable society under the Income Tax Act Organized 31 October 1922 PO Box 5254, Station B., Victoria BC V8R 6N4 0 www.bchistory.ca 0 info@bchistory.ca Under the Distinguished Patronage of The Honourable Judith Guichon, OBC Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia OFFICERS PRESIDENT Gary Mitchell Phone 250.387.2992 president@bchistory.ca FIRST VICE PRESIDENT K. Jane Watt Phone 778.246.0981 vpl@bchistory.ca SECOND VICE PRESIDENT Maurice Guibord Phone 604.253.9311 Mobile 604.771.3047 vp2@bchistory.ca SECRETARY Judy Lam Maxwell Phone 604.418.8560 secretary@bchistory.ca TREASURER Kerri Gibson Phone 250.386.3405 Fax: 250.361.3188 treasurer@bchistory.ca PAST PRESIDENT (EX-OFFICIO) Barry Gough Phone 250.592.0800 pas tpres ©bchistory.ca HONORARY PRESIDENT Jacqueline Gresko honorary@bchistory.ca DIRECTORS Marie Elliott essays@bchistory.ca Ron Hyde directorl@bchistory.ca Ken Wuschke director6@bchistory.ca COMMITTEE CHAIRS ADVOCACY Diane Rogers Brenda L. Smith advocacy@bchistory.ca CONFERENCES conference@bchistory.ca MAGAZINE LIAISON K. Jane Watt magazine@bchistory.ca HISTORICAL WRITING AWARDS Maurice Guibord writing@bchistory.ca MEMBERSHIP Ron Hyde membership@bchistory.ca W.KAYE LAMB ESSAY SCHOLARSHIP Marie Elliott essays@bchistory.ca RECOGNITION Gary Mitchell recognition@bchistory.ca HISTORIC TRAILS AND SITES Tom Lymbery Phone: 250-227-9448 Fax 250-227-9449 trails@bchistory.ca EDITORS Andrea Lister, Editor British Columbia History bcheditor@bchistory.ca K. Jane Watt, Book Review Editor, British Columbia History reviews@bchistory.ca Sylvia Stopforth, Archives & Archivists Editor British Columbia History Andrea Lister, BCHF Newsletter newsletter@bchistory.ca R.J. (Ron) Welwood, Website Editor webeditor@bchistory.ca For awards and scholarship information see inside back cover. MEMBERSHIP The British Columbia Historical Federation has been working since 1922 with historical sites, societies, groups, museums, archives, etc. throughout British Columbia preserving and promoting British Columbia's history. The British Columbia Historical Federation is an umbrella organization embracing a variety of membership categories which are interested in the preservation and promotion of British Columbia's history. Member Societies: Local and regional historical societies with objectives consistent with those of the Federation. All dues paying members of the local or regional society shall be ipso facto members of the Federation. Affiliated Members: Groups, organizations and institutions without dues paying members with specialized interests or objectives of a historical nature. Associate Members: Individuals may become members of the Federation. Corporate Members: Companies are entitled to become members of the Federation. ANNUAL MEMBERSHIP DUES Member Societies: one dollar per member with a minimum membership fee of $30 and a maximum of $75 Affiliated Members: $35 Associate Members: $35 Corporate Members: $100 For further information about memberships, contact Ron Hyde, Membership Chair BCHISTORY.CA: THE FEDERATION WEBSITE AND COMPANIONS BOOK STORE The website Book Store now has over 85 titles on its shelves from the British Columbia Historical Federation and member societies. Books can be purchased through bchistory.ca using PayPal. Purchase books about BC history: www.bchistory.ca/publications/store/index.html DIGITAL ARCHIVES Federation publications from 1923 - 2007 can be accessed from the main page. Click on the Publications link from www.bchistory.ca Or go directly to the university library website at http://bchistory.library.ubc.ca/?db=bchf# The archive of BCHF Newsletters can be found at http://bchistory.ca/publications/newsletter/index.html MAGAZINE ASSOCIATION OF BC | MABC www.bcamp.bc.ca BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Winter 2014 | Vol. 47 No. 4 Editor's Note Packaging History I have been doing lots of talking the past few months. I have interviewed investment professionals about changes in the industry, interviewed nominees for a national investment award and talked to family historians about researching and writing their family stories. The consistent message that I get from these very diverse sectors is that everyone has a story to tell. The Canadian investment industry is undergoing big changes with forthcoming regulatory updates in how they manage client relationships. They need to provide more detailed breakdowns of their customer's portfolios so that customers understand how much it costs them to invest. There is much gnashing of teeth in the investment world about these changes but in the end it comes down to communicating the value of their services to their customers.1 So what can we learn from the investment world that applies to the telling of history? Selling the value of historical story-telling is, in part, about the packaging. I talked about different containers or ways to package your history story to an enthusiastic audience at the Kelowna & District Genealogical Society "Harvest Your Family Tree" Conference in October. This is why I am excited about our new partnership with award winning designer William Glasgow who is responsible for the redesign of British Columbia History's cover. He will be revamping the inside as well to get the magazine in line with other magazines on the shelves and increase its marketability. Of course, great packaging is nothing if the insides do not live up to the promise of the design. In the software world it is what we call "vapourware". I am grateful for every author with whom I work and I am excited that our redesign will give their work a chance to reach a bigger audience. I am also pleased to introduce the newly formed Readers' Panel. The Reader's Panel is a group of volunteers who will read submissions and provide feedback; recruit authors; select and submit articles to magazine award competitions; and promote the magazine. Say hello to Janice Brown, Catherine Magee, Sandra Martins, and Erica Williams. Catherine Magee and Erica Williams are doing double-duty as they are already part of my invaluable proofing team along with Ronald Greene. Erica Williams is also our map- maker. We have also added a student intern to our team for a short duration. Sarah Sewell just finished her Masters of Arts and is looking to build a career in museums and cultural/heritage institutions. Her focus is in community histories and making history accessible, relevant and interesting to the public. We welcome her input and energy to our team. Until next time, Andrea Lister, Editor Submission Guidelines Manuscripts that have been published elsewhere, or are under review for publication elsewhere, will be considered at the editor's discretion. • Word Count 1000 to 5000. • Electronic version, with file extension (either .doc or .rtf), will be required should the article be accepted for publication. • Endnotes must follow Chicago Manual of Style. Do not insert notes in text. • Photocopies/scans of research material/ quoted material (pages from books, documents, or journals you have used) for fact checking are appreciated. • Illustrations are encouraged: ° Submit copies of permissions (or assurance of permission) for the images; ° Sufficient resolution for high-quality reproduction, 300 DPI (dots per inch) minimum or a pixel dimension of 1200x1500 pixels, (with the exception of images such as coins; minimum 600x600 pixels) preferable in jpg or tif format; ° Not embedded in text—send as separate files; ° Please provide suggested captions for the illustrations; Image credit information must be provided with all illustrations; Low-resolution images may be sent with initial submission in cases where images would need to be purchased from an institution. 1. Andrea Lister. "Disclosure: What is all the fuss about?" Smarten Up Institute. June 26, 2014. www.smartenupinstitute.com/disclosure- what%E2%80%99s-all-fuss-about. • Include a 2-3 sentence biographical note about the author and photo. If a manuscript is accepted for publication, major changes will be cleared with authors before publication. Authors will also have the opportunity to do a final proof check prior to publication. You agree to grant the BCHF First Rights (the right to be first to publish your material in North America) or Reprint Rights (your material has been published before and this is now a reprint; the original publisher will be credited at the time of reprint), and Electronic Publishing and Multimedia Rights (the right to publish the work on the internet) and to publish that work in British Columbia History for no payment. Future online publication of your work and the right to reprint it in a future publication is included in your granting of publication rights to the BCHF. The British Columbia Historical Federation assumes no responsibility for statements made by contributors. BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Winter 2014 | Vol. 47 No. 4 3 Inbox Letters from Readers Fall Issue Just finished reading the new magazine. Interesting stories as usual. Knew absolutely nothing about what went on in Victoria during the American Civil War. So this gave me a lot to think about. So glad that Naomi Miller wrote about Tom's Gray Creek — it is such an interesting book and well written with great photos. Look forward to the next one. Rosemarie Parent Nakusp, BC Lively Depiction There will be many more of your readers who thank you for such a fine article — Vol 47 #3 page 5. This well told tale of Tom and Lil toiling in their fading town will certainly stick in my mind; and setting it off with those riveting illustrations made the whole presentation a rare treat. I realise that this story arises from the unusual convergence of James Caughlan, a ghost town and the very lively depiction of its final old time miners, but if the writer finds another subject I hope he sends it to you. It is always a pleasure to find British Columbia History in the mail box. Edward Kay Chase, BC BC History Summer 2012 Vol. 45 No.2 Do you have a back copy of the above volume please? My late father's half-brother John Coulthard's uncle Frederick Coulthard is in this issue ["Land Under Water: The Coulthard Farm in 1935" by Rosemary Cunningham] and whereas I can see it online or print it out, it would be wonderful to hold an actual copy of the issue if it is printed in magazine form. I am very thrilled to-day as I have heard in e-mail from my father's half-brother's family for the first time as contact was lost totally pre-WW2. My father so often wondered what had happened to his half-brother and also his many other family members who live in the USA and Canada; I have traced these but the Coulthards remained quite lost until now. With all best wishes, Mrs. Angela Walters Buckinghamshire, England Editor's Note: Our MAGSBC subscription service has ensured that Angela Walters received a copy of the Summer 2012 issue through our back order service. Back orders can now be easily purchased through our website at bchistory.ca. France Frances and I just returned from France [yesterday] where we did a number of things including a visit to Vimy Ridge [memorial] and several cemeteries in the Arras region [including Garland Foster's gravesite - Frances' book is about his wife Annie] — all relating to WWI. Prior to this we went to Vassieux en Vercors where many of my relatives were slaughtered by the Nazis. They were part of the Resistance movement in the French alps. ... so your editorial struck home when I read it today. Ron Welwood Corrections Thank you for another great magazine with many interesting articles. I do have two corrections to the "Corrections" column. Both refer to the portion about Furrows in the Sky. You have Gerry Andrews name spelled with a "J" which is incorrect, it should be spelled with a "G". Second you have Jay Sherwood as the author of Metis Outpost when in fact it was Gerry Andrews. Jay did write Furrows in the Sky which is about Gerry Andrews and is another one of his excellent books. Watch for Jay's latest book on Frank Swannell to hit the book stores any day now. Robert W. Allen Sechelt, BC British Columbia History apologizes for the mistakes and thanks our eagle-eyed readers. BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Winter 2014 | Vol. 47 No. 4 My Sustainable Environmentalist Grandmother by Don Chutter Marion 'May' Walker was a woman ahead of her time — practising 'sustainable environmentalism' long before these terms came into common usage. Her brothers back in Manitoba each received a square mile (640 acres, 2.59 km2) of land as wedding presents from her father. In contrast, my grandmother had to be content with a 50' x 122' (15m x 37m) lot when she and her husband and three daughters moved from downtown Vancouver out to Eton Street in the Burnaby Heights area in 1912. However, what was lacking in size was compensated by her very intensive use of the property! I lived with my maternal grandparents in my late teens before graduating from UBC and joining the army. By that time, 1944, her garden had been developed for over three decades and had matured to the point that the back yard literally had no space left for further cultivation. At the back there was a chicken coop and extensive run, encased top and sides by chicken wire. In the middle of the run was a huge Himalaya blackberry bush. Well, tree, really, because, nurtured by the chickens' droppings, it had grown to a size appropriate for its name and, in season, was laden with very large juicy berries! Tucked into a corner were two bee hives whose inhabitants had a great time gathering nectar and cross-pollinating and, of course, producing honey. My grandmother thought poorly of store-bought bread and baked her own scrumptious brown whole wheat loaves. In this regard she re-cycled lard pails as her bake pans. I enjoyed some semi-celebrity status among my fellow students as being the only person with perfectly round sandwiches! The latter were often filled with home-produced honey which, moreover, not being pasteurized, still possessed all of its nutrient values. A principal feature of the backyard was four large fruit trees — apple, cherry, pear and plum respectively. My grandmother was not satisfied with this variety but successfully grafted additional species of each fruit onto 5 .«■—* 4 r **&LW£L-LkV^ b i_^hh r mm • m Haik m , ^^F*r ^■^■^n? —^^^mmaMThm-m ^mh —^m^mam^m^M ~ J. M^^^M ■Mil! ~*^*WWm -^W*V T i t k^^. lT^ irt T^- - - fc~ f" - *i ^TT^B^Bfrta i — ■" -^- Don Ch utter was born in Vancouver. When he was ten his family moved to England. He was repatriated in August, 1940 and lived with his maternal grandparents in his late teens. Upon demobilization from the Canadian Army he obtained his MBA from the UofT and joined the Canadian Construction Association in Ottawa, becoming its staff president in 1955. Last year he was awarded the Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Medal for service to the construction industry and the Ottawa community. Photograph of the Walker family living in a tent at Eton Street and Ingleton Avenue. Families often pitched a tent on their lot while their house was being built. BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Winter 2014 | Vol. 47 No. 4 5 The family, left to right, are Charles Walker, their daughter Roma, May Walker, and their daughter Eula. Below is their daughter Clover, Don Chutter's mother, circa 1912. them. Indeed, in the early 1930s, when in her 60s, she registered for a grafting course at UBC's Agriculture Department in order to perfect her craft. She proudly hosted a field trip for her professor and fellow students to inspect her work. The crows and other birds also noticed her prowess, particularly with regard to the cherries. This led to the positioning of two cow bells, attached by lines to the back porch, which would be pulled vigorously to scare away the birds. I cannot recall that any neighbour dared to complain. The crows and other birds also noticed her prowess, particularly with regard to the cherries. This led to the positioning of two cow bells, attached by lines to the back porch, which would be pulled vigorously to scare away the birds. On the ground there were rows of vegetables, strawberries and raspberries. But that was not all. Inasmuch as cucumbers, squash and vegetable marrows took up a lot of ground space, her solution was to train them up the north fence, which was sturdy and perhaps 7 feet (2.13 m) high. The house was built on a slope overlooking Burrard Inlet. Its south side was supported by pillars and the space under the dining room was left open. It not only sheltered the wood pile and clotheslines but also a "root cellar" — carrots, potatoes, turnips etc. were buried there to be kept over the rest of the year and to be dug up when needed. The full basement was excavated into the hill at the same level. A large area was devoted to shelving for rows and rows of bottled preserves of fruit, pickles, jams and jellies. The furnace used sawdust as its fuel — a waste product from the local sawmills. The garage was also at ground level beneath the living room. I was rummaging in it one day and came across a couple of wine bottles, covered in dust. When I lifted one up its cork blew off and I was splattered with foamy berry wine. I took the other bottle up carefully to show my grandmother what I had found. She identified it as some of her homemade wine which she had forgotten about. She happily decided to serve it to dinner guests that evening. BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Winter 2014 | Vol. 47 No. 4 ^^dHU 9 HP HnHHW ,B/nP^ jT' ' " r—HfiR ■ .- L^*\5 ^ay-i- »>jjaK& Jnfid* ''HI It should be noted that my grandparents were very strict teetotallers. My grandmother, however, steadfastly explained that she did not put any alcohol into her wines — they were the result of God's work in her garden. No one had the temerity to contest this rationale. It was noticeable, though, that her cheeks became quite red after she had consumed her second glass. The smaller front garden was devoted to a high ivy-covered fence and archway over the driveway, flowering shrubs and a lawn. The large front porch was glassed in and served as a greenhouse not only for flowers and plants but also for seedlings destined for the vegetable garden. The flowers naturally included edible varieties such as nasturtiums. Flower tubs occupied each of the wide front steps leading to the porch and large window boxes filled with flowers such as fuchsias hung below the front windows. Not content with the development of their own property, my grandmother eyed the municipal strip of land between the sidewalk and street. Using the war effort as an excuse, she dug up most of the grass and planted three rows of potatoes. They did well and she rationalized that after the war when the grass was restored it would grow much better because of the nitrogen introduced into the soil by the potatoes. Alas, in due course the verge, its lawn and two mature cedar trees were all the victims of a street-widening project. More could be said but the above should demonstrate that my grandmother was a practising 'sustainable environmentalist' long before her time — indeed, before these terms came into usage. She died in the summer of 1944, aged 77. In accordance with her instructions, her ashes were spread around the garden in which she had spent so many enjoyable hours.* May Walker in her sun porch at the front of the house at 3735 Eton Street, Vancouver Heights, Burnaby. As you can see, there were window boxes of flowers. Inside there were also a lot of plants. The thick ivy-cove red fence bordered the front garden. BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Winter 2014 | Vol. 47 No. 4 Fitz and the Great War by Robin Anderson J.B. Fitzmaurice was BC's most famous editorial cartoonist during the first three decades of the 20th century. His best- remembered cartoons are from the period of the Great War. Robin Anderson is an Associate Professor at the University of the Fraser Valley. His articles have been published in numerous journals on the economic, social, and cultural history of British Columbia. He has recently looked at the changing contours of sport and leisure practices in the urban context before and during the First World War and the growth of political cartooning in the early years of Vancouver. He is currently writing a book on the cartoons of J.B. Fitzmaurice and preparing curriculum materials that use the cartoons in secondary school classrooms. Between 1908 and 1926 "Fitz" drew over 2,100 images for the Province newspaper — the most widely- distributed newspaper in BC As we acknowledge the centenary of the Great War, his black and white images bring animation and context to our view of life on the home front during those difficult years. Life of J.B. Fitzmaurice Not much is known about James Brian Fitzmaurice.1 He was born in England in 1875, immigrated to Canada as a sixteen-year- old in the early 1890s, and took up a number of labouring jobs in the Pacific Northwest of the US and later British Columbia before arriving in Vancouver around 1900. As was common for cartoonists in the United States and Canada in the late nineteenth century, Fitzmaurice appears to have had no formal art training. The young Fitzmaurice obviously had a talent for drawing, and by 1904 he was employed drawing promotional chalkboard advertisements outside Vancouver's thriving vaudeville houses. These ads caught the eye of staff members at the Province newspaper and in December 1907 owner and publisher Walter Nichol hired Fitzmaurice to produce cartoons and other illustrations for the daily. Fitzmaurice (or "Fitz" as he became known) published his first cartoon for the Province in early January 1908. The image appeared on the front page, a political cartoon depicting then-Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier as a corrupt politician trying to maintain Liberal party control on power. Walter Nichol used his Province newspaper to solidly support both the federal and provincial Conservative parties, and this political perspective shaped the contents of the paper. Fitz's cartoons followed suit. Over the next two years the novice cartoonist would produce over 300 cartoons for the newspaper, most of which appeared on the front page. None supported the Liberals. During this time Fitz learned the skills of a topical editorial cartoonist. His job was to support the editorial position and reporting content of the paper. Newspapers in his time were far more overtly partisan and political cartoonists had much less editorial independence than they do today. As such, some of Fitzmaurice's most memorable political cartoons in these years were of Laurier, usually portrayed in the midst of corrupt activities with the aid of incompetent, certainly idiotic, sidemen. At the Province Fitzmaurice was hired to do more than political cartoons. Typical of the journeymen artist/illustrators who toiled on the payrolls of daily newspapers in towns and cities outside of a handful of major markets like New York, Chicago, and perhaps Montreal, Fitz was expected to contribute a wide range of drawings, from sport cartoons to images summarizing local theater productions, to advertising illustrations. His work was all over the newspaper, and the pressure to produce to deadline was enormous. He alludes to the stress of his job in some later cartoons. With over 300 published cartoons under his belt, and a growing reputation as a good, biting cartoonist and all-purpose illustrator, Fitzmaurice decided to move on to greener, perhaps more lucrative, pastures in eastern Canada and the United States. The last half of the nineteenth century was a golden age for cartoonists in Canada and the United States with the emergence of Americans Thomas Nast and Joseph Keppler and Canadian John Wilson Bengough. The decade before the First World War saw the beginnings of syndication of cartoons, an innovation that began in the 1890s in New York City and was soon perfected by the Hearst newspaper empire during the war. With the explosive growth of daily newspapers from the late 1880s onwards, and accompanying competition for readers, cartoonists were in great demand to provide editorial support, humour, and lively visual content. Fitzmaurice likely moved east in BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Winter 2014 | Vol. 47 No. 4 1910 to find greater success and possibly a syndication deal. Fitz spent five years in eastern Canada and the United States working for a variety of newspapers, but for reasons that are beyond the historical record he returned to Vancouver and the Province newspaper in the summer of 1916. Times had changed. When Fitz left the west coast in 1910, the city was in the midst of an economic boom and almost hysterical optimism. When the cartoonist returned in July 1916, two years of war in Europe had transformed Vancouver into a mobilized home front, and the full horror of the battle of the Somme was just reaching city dwellers through their newspapers. From the summer of 1916 until the end of the war in November 1918, Fitzmaurice produced approximately 400 cartoon images and created a visual narrative of the Great War and its meanings for British Columbian readers. His work became an important tool in mobilizing local residents, providing dozens of anti-German propaganda cartoons and images to encourage local recruitment and support for wartime charities. Fitz also reflected the wider, lived experience of Vancouverites during the war years, with subtle cartoons that poked fun at middle class confusions to make sacrifices for the ira^-.-irf'.- war effort. In all, Fitzmaurice provided British Columbians a reflective, ongoing testament of the Great War. Fitzmaurice was always two cartoonists. As the first, he drew single panel political or public affairs cartoons that usually appeared on the front page of the newspaper. As the second, he crafted multi-panel, slice-of-life cartoons that depicted the "Everyman" struggling to cope with the very average challenges of middle-class domestic life in Vancouver. Both cartoonists responded to and were shaped by the context of war. Wartime Propaganda Cartoons Fitzmaurice embraced his wartime role as a propagandist in his front page public affairs cartoons. These images were designed to unquestionably support the allied war effort and vilify the enemy Central Powers, consisting of Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, and Bulgaria. Fitz was just one of hundreds of cartoonists from allied countries who performed this role during Left: Picture of Fitz from The Gold Stripe (1918). Unfortunately, this fuzzy reproduction was the only image we could find of Fitz. Right: A self- portrait cartoon titled "Fitz Has Come Back" from the front page of the Vancouver Province, August 12, 1916. BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Winter 2014 | Vol. 47 No. 4 9 HUNTED Cartoon of Kaiser Wilhelm II, the last German Emperor, from the Vancouver Province, 27 September 1916. the war. All of them relied on a well-worn cast of commonly-understood characters, often allegories representing nations or other collectives or even principles. Following this common visual language, the cartoonist would place the characters in familiar domestic situations that revealed their honourable or, more likely, dishonourable intentions. During the war Fitz relied on many of the stock allegorical characters readers were already familiar with, such as Old Man Canada or Miss Canada (depending on the goal of the image), Uncle Sam to represent American interests and goals, and John Bull to do the same for Britain. Fitz also drew symbolic characters to represent specific principles or values, and during the First World War such embodiments as "War" or "Peace" or "Justice" or "Father Time" were used to great effect. Of course, real historical personalities were crucial elements in these propaganda images as well. Kaiser Wilhelm II, the last German Emperor, was used by Fitz more than any other character in his wartime propaganda cartoons.2 The Kaiser was a perfect visual propaganda device because of his particular appearance — the characteristic handlebar mustache and spiked Prussian helmet — were so easy to caricature. It was used as a visual device to embody all that was wrong with Germany, and by association the other Central Powers. The real Kaiser Wilhelm, a rather troubled man with a significant physical disability, had played a central role as head of state in the military buildup of German power and had worked to retard the development of representative democracy in the two decades before the war. However, Wilhelm's control of decision making was never absolute, and during the war the German military command, not the Kaiser, was clearly in charge. Undeterred, cartoonists like Fitzmaurice focussed blame for the war on the Kaiser and the autocratic values he stood for. Such was the convenient lie that suited the needs of visual propaganda. Typical of Fitzmaurice's anti-German propaganda cartoons is "Hates to Pay the Price," a front-page cartoon from late January 1917.3 In this image we find Kaiser Wilhelm as a father struggling with the cost of ending the war outside the "Allies Peace Shop." As his son, the "German People," cries out for the gift of peace, the reader notes that the boy had 10 BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Winter 2014 | Vol. 47 No. 4 been given an earlier toy, a stick and ball, which spells out "promises of victory." Note as well that the price of peace at the Allies Peace Shop is "unconditional surrender." This cartoon contains many of the elements that characterized Fitzmaurice's wartime images. First, the characters are placed in a domestic setting that would have been widely understood, especially by a middle- class Vancouver audience: father and son debating a toy purchase outside a retail store window. The juxtaposition of placing major historical figures in common domestic settings was the basis for humour in many political cartoons in this period. That said, Fitzmaurice packs a lot of meaning into this image. For instance, the German People want peace, while the Kaiser is hesitant to pay the price. Fitz rarely blamed the war on the German people; most of his cartoons suggested a wide gulf between what he saw as the fundamentally moral German people and their immoral, illegitimate leadership. Other cartoonists — British and American — were not nearly as forgiving of the German people. Nonetheless, support for the goal of unconditional German surrender is crystal clear from this cartoon. By the end of 1916 the war was "to-the-death" for Fitz and most other commentators. To do less so, they would have argued, would dishonour those who had already lost their lives in France. Many of Fitz's propaganda cartoons reminded readers of why they were fighting the war — these images presented a pool of nefarious German war aims from which HATES TO PAY THE PRICE to choose: defense of autocracy, the divine right of kings, militarism, transgression of the laws of humanity, and world domination. The cartoon "Clean Up Year" (on back cover) does just that.4 A soldier representing "The Allies" sweeps some of these German war aims off the earth with the goal of a "permanent peace" after the housework is done. In the best tradition of propaganda cartoons, Fitz also tried to buoy the spirits of readers during the darker periods of the war, of which there were many, with images that minimized the effectiveness A front-page cartoon from the January 29 1917 Vancouver Province. BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Winter 2014 | Vol. 47 No. 4 11 RUNNING OUT OF MATERIAL Time wwm * ccmu> acm«MS_ (V4V 6WH fftCK. WHAT NEXT. WTLUAM? "Running Out of Material" from mid-February 1917 Vancouver Province mocks the ability of Germany to strike fear into both the Allies and neutral countries. of German military efforts. For instance, "Running Out of Material" mocks the ability of Germany to strike fear into both the Allies and neutral countries. This cartoon, which appeared in mid-February 1917, was part of a series of cartoons that dealt with German submarine warfare and American efforts to stay out of the war. German "Frightfulness," as Fitz called it, was made up of such technologies and strategies as "Ruthlessness," the "Zeppelin Scare," and "Submarine Terror Threat." While the visual propaganda suggested such frightfulness was ineffective, people who read the newspaper and received letters from relatives overseas knew German war strategies were taking their toll. While Fitzmaurice did not produce many cartoons to recruit men for overseas, he did draw dozens of images to encourage British Columbians to support the war effort through the recruitment of their pocketbooks. Almost immediately after war was declared in August 1914, volunteer organizations were created to support soldiers and their families. The most important of these was the "War Fund" to assist the families of men intended for overseas service. By the end of August the War Fund would be absorbed into the Canadian Patriotic Fund (CPF), a nation-wide private family assistance charity created by Sir Herbert Brown Ames and under the patronage of the Governor General and a handful of government officials. In addition to the CPF, Fitzmaurice drew cartoons to promote War Bonds, the Red Cross, the BC Active Service Emergency Fund, the Returned Soldiers Club Fund, and a host of smaller, parochial wartime support initiatives. So-called "Tag Days" became the most common method of collecting voluntary contributions — volunteers for a given organization would flood popular downtown streets asking for cash in exchange for tags (or, more extravagantly, buttons) that would be proudly worn as evidence of their contribution. In "Vancouver is Honored in the Giving", Mr. Vancouver, his coat already littered with tags, is eager to purchase another on Red Cross Tag Day in mid-October 1916.5 After the tragic Halifax Explosion in early December 1917, returned soldiers took to the streets in Vancouver to raise money for the Halifax Relief Fund. Fitz promoted the Halifax Tag Day in the cartoon "Tomorrow's Drive."6 More than any other wartime fund-raising strategy, Fitz peppered the front page with cartoons promoting Victory Bonds after the federal government introduced the program in 1917. Cartoonists across Canada immediately sensed a propaganda field day. Fitzmaurice's "Duty Calls" was typical. Playing upon the recruitment poster, the fatherly figure 12 BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Winter 2014 | Vol. 47 No. 4 VANCOUVER IS HONORED IN THE GIVING DUTY CALLS Top left: Mr. Vancouver eager to purchase another tag on Red Cross Tag Day in the October 19, 1916 Vancouver Province cartoon. Top right: December 12,1917 Vancouver Province cartoon promoting Victory bonds. Bottom: Tags for various charities: the Italian Red Cross Society, Relief of War Victims In the Holy Land, Belguim Relief, and the Patriotic Guild Sock Fund, c 1914-1918. BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Winter 2014 | Vol. 47 No. 4 13 Fitzmaurice found great fun in mocking efforts of upper class city dwellers' backyard gardening and stock-raising in this November 28, 1917 Vancouver Province cartoon. WHEN SOCIETY GOES IN FOR RAISING PATRIOTIC PIGS "Patriotic Canada," urges his son, "Canada's Eligible Wealth," to "get in khaki!" "My boy," declares Dad, "it's your duty!"7 Everyman on the Home Front The other cartoonist that lived within J.B. Fitzmaurice during the war gently mocked the efforts of average middle class Vancouverites to contribute to the war effort. These cartoons were very different in style, content, and tone from the front page propaganda images. For one thing, there was no clear message here. Instead, these were multi-framed reflections of wartime confusions and absurdities. And, even to the modern reader a century later, they 14 BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Winter 2014 | Vol. 47 No. 4 WHEN If COMES TO KILLING THE FAMILY PIG are funny: most cartoons by other artists from his era are based on a style of humour modern readers find corny. But many of Fitzmaurice's Everyman cartoons, in part because they were drawn from lived experience that under his pen became absurdly exaggerated, remain resonant — and are very funny today. Take the cartoon "When Society goes in for Raising Patriotic Pigs".8 People in Vancouver, as elsewhere in Canada during the war, were encouraged to support the war effort by making sacrifices at home, such as lowering their consumption of certain foods and fuels, and producing food for their own consumption. Fitzmaurice found great fun in mocking these efforts, particularly the explosion of "Patriotic" backyard gardening and stock-raising. In this cartoon Fitz introduces the idea of upper class city dwellers raising pigs for the war effort, a joke he repeated in several dozen The hard reality of turning lifestock into dinner is the subject of this February 5, 1918 Vancouver Province cartoon. BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Winter 2014 | Vol. 47 No. 4 15 Fitz takes aim at prohibition in this September 28, 1917, Vancouver Province cartoon. THERE SESTiS TO' m AN AWUL LOT OF SIGCMESS ABO well-loved cartoons in the last two years of the war. Fitz himself kept a pig (Horace) and goat (Annie) during the war years, and made local celebrities of the two in his public "Caulk Talk" performances. One of my favourites in the Horace series is "When it comes to killing the Family Pig," from February 1918.9 At some point in the suburban stock-raising experience came the hard reality of turning meat-on-the- hoof into dinner. At the dinner table when father says "I don't think Horace is as tender as Peter was..." and asks if others would like another helping; his wife in tears replies, "How can you be so brutal Harold! Yes, I will have a small slice please...." Fitzmaurice also had a run at prohibition, brought in as a provincial law in October 1917 and then nationally in April 1918. While the social movement against alcohol consumption — first a temperance movement and then a prohibition movement — had significant support, especially in the self-sacrificing context of the Great War, prohibition in practice was not particularly popular. 16 BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Winter 2014 | Vol. 47 No. 4 Reflecting this ambivalence, an exemption in the provincial law allowed the consumption of alcohol for medicinal reasons. Fitzmaurice, not a supporter of prohibition, recognized the humour in this loophole even before the British Columbia Prohibition Act was passed with the cartoon "There Seems to be an Awful Lot of Sickness About".10 As one of the characters states to the reader: "I find that alcohol is the only thing that will cure that cold I always have." In the end prohibition likely had little impact on actual alcohol consumption; in 1919 over 180,000 prescriptions were written by doctors for medicinal liquor11 and the province would repeal the Act in 1921. Fitzmaurice's gently humorous images of life on the home front are the cartoons many fondly remembered years after the war because these cartoons grew out of a shared experience during a period of overwhelming anxiety and loss. They contain a kind of wink and nod to others who lived through the Great War at home. The cartoon "War Monuments for Civilians" from May 1918 reflects that modest sense of shared experience.12 From working hard in the Victory Garden to raising chickens in the backyard, to buying tags on Tag Days, the middle class Vancouverite was both honoured and made light of in Fitzmaurice cartoons. Conclusion After the Great War ended in November 1918 James Fitzmaurice continued to produce political and social affairs cartoons for the Vancouver Province until his sudden death at age 51 on January 1926. His death was indeed unexpected, as the newspaper published his final cartoon not knowing the artist had died the night before. At his well-attended memorial, friends and colleagues from the press remembered the enormous influence Fitz had over public affairs and fondly recalled his biting and entertaining drawings during the war. A century later, as we mark the centenary of the Great War, the cartoons of James Fitzmaurice offer us a rich reflection of Vancouver's wartime experience.* Endnotes 1. For a more detailed look at Fitzmaurice's life and work see Robin Anderson, "The British Columbia View of Cartoonist J.B. Fitzmaurice, 1908-9" Journal of Canadian Studies 42:1 (Winter 2008), 23-58 and Robin Anderson, "Making Fun of Sport: James Fitzmaurice, Robert Ripley, and the Art of Sport Cartooning in Vancouver, 1907-1918" Journal of Sport History 37:3 (Fall 2010), 365-396. 2. Vancouver Province, 27 September 1916, p. 1. 3. Vancouver Province, 29 January 1917, p. 1. 4. Vancouver Province, 25 April 1917, p. 1. 5. Vancouver Province, 19 October 1916, p. 1. 6. Vancouver Province, 12 December 1917, p. 1. 7. Vancouver Province, 3 November 1917, p. 1. 8. Vancouver Province, 28 November 1917, p. 1. 9. Vancouver Province, 5 February 1918, p. 1. 10. Vancouver Province, 28 September 1917, p. 1. 11. Douglas L. Hamilton, Sobering Dilemma: the History of Prohibition in British Columbia (Vancouver: Ronsdale Press, 2004), 95-98. 12. Vancouver Province, 16 May 1918, p. 1. Discover BC's Past Humorous, tragic, personal and engaging stories in every issue. Subscribe Today! orwy™ (four new issues) only $20 BC's history awaits you. Subscribe on line: www.bchisrory.ca by phone: 604.688.1175 by email: subscriprions@bchisrory.ca by mail: British Columbia History, Subscriptions, c/o Magazine Associarion of BC, #316-336 East 1st Avenue, Vancouver, BC, V5T 4R6 BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Winter 2014 | Vol. 47 No. 4 17 18 BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Winter 2014 | Vol. 47 No. 4 Quesnel's Gertrude Fraser by Naomi Miller Ask any old-timer in Quesnel if there is a nurse who stands out in their memory. The answer is always "Gertrude Fraser/' The citizens may not remember exactly when she arrived but they do know that when this young lady commenced as Matron she was welcomed by the famous Dr. "Paddy" Baker. Gertrude Watt arrived in Quesnel on New Year's Day 1937. She and her Aunt Edith Oliver came to visit Edith's son, and Gertrude's cousin, Dr. Darwin Oliver. Auntie returned to Vancouver but Gertrude became a citizen of the Cariboo until her death in 2003. Gertrude Watt was born and grew up in southeastern Saskatchewan, at Bienfait, near the United States border. Her mother died in 1928, the year she finished high school. She went to nursing school in Estevan, receiving her RN in 1932. She returned to nurse in Bienfait's small hospital. Gertrude remembered that beyond the traditional bedside care a nurse and coworkers were expected to: • Carry patients from one floor to another (usually on a stretcher). • Make house calls. • Deliver babies if a doctor was not available. • Prepare bodies for burial. • Sterilize instruments and set up the operating room. • Stoke the fire in the furnace and kitchen range at night. • Take X-rays. • Administer anesthetics. • Accompany doctors on rounds. • Write down doctor's orders (this because many doctors had abominable handwriting). Miss Watt lived upstairs in the Bienfait Hospital, noting that phones and the ringing of patient's bells could be heard in the nurses' sleeping quarters. This meant that if all patients were sleeping quietly she could retreat to rest for a while. For a full year Gertrude did night shift. On one of these nights she was called out to a nearby home. It was a stormy winter night in Bienfait. The doctor was attending an emergency at a mine. I bundled up and walked to the house where a pregnant mother from outside town was staying. She came to this friend's place to deliver her tenth baby. A large healthy nine pound baby boy came into the world that night.... but there were complications. The placenta would not expel from the mother. Somehow I got her through the night. The doctor came to the house to finalize the procedure when he got back into town in the morning. Thirty years later in the mid 1960s Gertrude and her husband were at a dinner in Clinton, BC and happened to overhear a man at the next table say to his companions, "I'm sure that none of you have ever heard of the place where I was born. I'm from Bienfait, Saskatchewan. "Gertrude went over and told him that she knew where Bienfait was, as she also was from there. She went on to ask him if he was born in Bienfait Hospital. "No, I was born in a house near the hospital on a very stormy night in winter." When he told his name Gertrude informed him that she was the nurse who had delivered him on that stormy night. That "baby" became a staunch political supporter of Gertrude's husband the Honourable Alex Fraser. For almost a year Gertrude worked in Winnipeg to experience a wider range of cases than her Estevan training had provided. When she returned to Bienfait she learned that her Uncle George and Aunt Edith were moving to Vancouver. They had become her anchor family since her mother died. Aunt Edith and Gertrude set off to drive to the coast in late fall 1936. George was to tidy up his business and come out by train later. Aunt Edith had a Marquette car which she had just learned to drive. Gertrude, also a novice, had no driver's licence but shared duties anyway. The route they followed, of necessity, was through the Naomi Miller grew up in the West Kootenay town of Kaslo, BC. She received a degree in nursing from UBC. In 1968 she and her family moved to Golden, BC, where Naomi and her husband worked as directors to build and establish the Golden and District Museum. Naomi volunteered as curator for 12 years, and her interests expanded to include history province-wide. She served as president of the BCHF, and then became the editor of the British Columbia Historical News. She is the author of Fort Steele: Gold Rush to Boom Town. BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Winter 2014 | Vol. 47 No. 4 19 From left: Unidentified nurse, Dr. Baker, and Getrude Watt standing in the snow outside the Quesnel Hospital, circa 1939 or 1940. United States. Snow greeted them at Helena, Montana. Ice on Lookout Pass in Idaho terrified them. They limped to a tiny community with no auto court so they begged the owner of a gas station to provide a bed overnight. They arrived in Vancouver in early November, stayed with Edith's in-laws until they found a suitable home to rent and moved in. Edith's son, Dr. Darwin Oliver, recently graduated from medical school, had gone to work with Dr. G.R. Baker in Quesnel. He invited family members to visit him. Gertrude, Edith, and cousin Mortimer took a boat from Vancouver to Squamish, boarded the Pacific Great Eastern train, and arrived in Quesnel on New Year's morning, 1937. The visit was meant to be for weeks, perhaps up to three months. Aunt Edith returned to Vancouver but Gertrude stayed as a nurse to assist her cousin Darwin at the clinic. Tuesdays and Fridays were busy days at the clinic as patients came in on the train from Alexandria, Kersley and points south. On Wednesdays and Saturdays Nurse Watt accompanied Dr. Oliver to Wingdam, a gold mining community east of Quesnel. The road was especially treacherous in winter. Despite hardships, Gertrude preferred the Cariboo to Vancouver. The clinic nurse was also considered hospital staff when not at the clinic. When the hospital Matron left in the fall, Gertrude Watt was appointed to replace her. Her pay was increased from $66 a month to $85 with room and board assured.1 Staff was given one half day a week off. As Matron she was on call to scrub in the operating room at any time. An urgent case arrived just as Gertrude was preparing to go on her first date with Alex Fraser. Dr. Baker caught the couple at the door of the nurses' residence, apologized profusely, and invited Alex to witness the surgery. Young Matron Watt faced a very domineering president of the Hospital Auxiliary. One item advocated by Madame President was very heavy china plates, cups and bowls. They were so heavy that infirm patients had difficulty lifting the cup to take a drink and the nurses complained of the weight on meal trays. Just as Gertrude prepared to order lighter chinaware a delivery man arrived with a new box of heavy china. Miss Watt refused to accept the box and ordered it returned to sender. The delivery man quaked because he feared the wrath of the President of the Auxiliary. Later Miss Watt went to the president's home. When she presented a request for lighter weight dishes she was told, "It is too late. The proper dishes have arrived!" Gertrude informed her that they had been sent back. Madame President bristled, stating, "There is nothing wrong with those dishes. They are used in the Seattle Hospital. There is less breakage." Nurse Watt replied that she didn't care what they did in Seattle. "In Quesnel we will have lighter weight dishes." That frequently related tale concluded with Gertrude's "Of course I was not invited to stay for tea." An addition was built onto the Quesnel Hospital in 1938. The Hospital Board asked 20 BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Winter 2014 | Vol. 47 No. 4 Miss Watt to recruit two additional nurses. Gertrude arranged to interview candidates when she went to Vancouver to visit her Aunt and Uncle. The selected nurses agreed to come to the Cariboo "but only for a year, since they both had boyfriends in the big city." Lifestyle in the Cariboo plus nice local swains, convinced those two to spend the rest of their lives in Quesnel. Part of the expansion was a proper nursery for newborns. Miss Watt and Mr. Seymour, building maintenance man, built an incubator for a premature infant when this was needed. Alex Fraser and his friend George Wood operated a truck line from Vancouver to Prince George. He arranged his timetable so that he was in Quesnel on Saturday evenings. One Saturday he was late arriving home. When he asked for Gertrude at the Nurses Residence he was told that she had gone to the dance with a fellow from Wells on a blind date. Alex went to the dance, challenged the temporary escort to a foot race with the winner to drive Gertrude home. Alex won the race and ultimately the heart of the young nurse. Later Alex would leave his car, a Buick Club Coupe, at the hospital with Gertrude. (She could use it but his brothers could not.) Alex Fraser married Gertrude Marjorie Watt on Wednesday, August 7, 1940 at St. Andrews United Church in Quesnel. The bride was given away by Dr. Baker. Gertrude married into a political family. Her father- in-law, John, served in both the provincial legislature and federal parliament. The couple had a honeymoon at the coast then returned to the house they had purchased in Quesnel. A few weeks after the wedding, however, Alex joined the army. He was posted to the supply depot at Little Mountain in Vancouver. The army gave Alex an allowance to live off base so Gertrude joined him in a small apartment in the West End. There was a shortage of nurses due to the wartime demands so married nurses were invited to go back to work.2 The new Mrs. Fraser did relief work in several Vancouver hospitals. They rented their Quesnel home for $25 per month — the exact amount of their mortgage payment. The house had been paid for by the end of the war. When they returned to Quesnel they plunged into community activities. Gertrude Wedding of Alex Fraser and Gertrude Watt, August 7, 1940. BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Winter 2014 | Vol. 47 No. 4 21 became a co-founder of the Order of the Royal Purple, the female auxiliary of the Elks of Canada, and a volunteer with the Hospital Auxiliary. Alex became involved with local politics. In 1949 he was elected a Councillor of the District of Quesnel, becoming Reeve when the incumbent died. When District was changed to Town, Alex became Mayor. The Fraser's were always in the public eye from that day forward. The couple longed to have a family and applied to an adoption agency. Meanwhile, they were happy to care for Jeannie Lavington from 1950 to 1955. This started as a favour to a widower who lived on an isolated ranch. When Dude Lavington remarried, his new wife (formerly on staff of the Vancouver Sun) took some time to adapt to ranch life. When this new Mrs. Lavington felt settled enough little Jeannie returned to the ranch. From then on, however, the Frasers were excluded from her life. Gertrude records this excommunication as the biggest heartbreak in her memory. Near the end of 1957 the Frasers were notified that "their baby" was waiting for them in another community. Gertrude and Alex promptly arranged to drive to fetch a baby girl. This new arrival was named "Bonnie Joy" — Bonnie because she was beautiful, and Joy for the happiness she brought them. When Bonnie Joy was two Getrude and Alex adopted a homeless, restless fourteen- year old, Louise Cameron. "Douise" quickly became part of the family. She not only enjoyed caring for Bonnie Joy, but she became a mainstay for household chores when Mrs. Fraser had a broken hip and leg. Louise suddenly enjoyed school and graduated, then went away to secretarial school. She returned to work in Quesnel, living at home with the Frasers till she married. The two girls grew up adoring their mother and father. Although they were active in the community, family times were special times. Alex made sure he had some "quality time" with the girls but when it came to household tasks he admitted that he couldn't drive a nail without bending it. He was glad to leave small household jobs for his wife to handle. Gertrude was a loving energetic lady who could invent games and stories, fix mechanical problems and ensure that every cent of the modest household budget was well spent. Alex was in public office from 1949 til his death forty years later. Gertrude, of course, accompanied him to many functions. Most of the events were pleasant but occasionally there were glitches (Gertrude diplomatically declined to give examples of the latter.) When Alex was Mayor they were privileged to receive a number of distinguished visitors to Quesnel. These included Governor- General Vincent Massey and his family, Lieutenant-Govenor Pearkes and Princess Margaret. A later bonus was meeting Queen Elizabeth when she visited Kamloops. Gertrude was an enthusiastic member of the Hospital Auxiliary. She worked at their Thrift Shop, participated in the planning and execution of dances or other fund raisers. She became Vice President in 1964 and President in 1965. Alex Fraser became the MLA for Cariboo first elected as a member of the BC Social Credit Party in 1969. Initially he stayed in Victoria only during sessions of the legislature. In 1975 Fraser was appointed Minister of Transportation and Highways. These were busy times for that ministry so the Frasers moved to Victoria. Life changed for Gertrude but she enjoyed the hectic pace set by her popular husband. Alex Fraser believed in viewing each major highway improvement, each new bridge or small airport (like Anahim Lake), that was created or upgraded during his term of office. It seemed that he drove or was driven over every stretch of public road in the province. Sometimes he availed himself of the Socred government jet. Gertrude frequently accompanied him, occasionally acting as his secretary. Staff members enjoyed her company because of her thoughtful actions and sense of humour. Staff also credited Mrs. Fraser with being an astute evaluator and a confidential advisor to her husband. Political activities took an increasing amount of Gertrude's time once their daughters were married. The Fraser home on the Saanich Peninsula of Vancouver Island assumed the role of the Cariboo Embassy. Gertrude claimed that even those Cariboo citizens criticizing some government program or policy were as welcome as long-time friends. 22 BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Winter 2014 | Vol. 47 No. 4 Many was the time that Alex would bring home company for dinner, usually with very little advance warning. Gertrude became very friendly with some of the women connected with politics at that time. She particularly remembers Grace McCarthy, MLA and Grace Chabot, Jeanne Campbell and Audrey Bennett, wives of fellow ministers. While at home on Athlone Drive in Saanich Gertrude enjoyed working in the garden. Someone donated a truckload of topsoil which made it possible to expand the number of flowers and shrubs dotting the rocky promontory. Early in 1986 Alex was diagnosed with cancer of the larynx. His voice box was surgically removed. Physically and mentally Alex was in his prime...he dreamed of one more term in the legislature. This was an election year and his fellow ministers encouraged him to run again. Premier Vander Zalm went so far as to promise to keep him as Minister of Transportation and Highways. Electors in the Cariboo loved their MLA. Routine election campaign rallies were held with Gertrude reading Alex's speeches. When a question was asked, Alex wrote a partial answer and Gertrude fielded it admirably. Alex was re-elected with a majority of 6000 votes over his competitor. However, Vander Zalm's did not keep his promise and Alex was not retained as Minister of Transportation. Shortly after the election the official opening of the Alex Fraser bridge took place. Gertrude Fraser making a speech with Alex beside her at the opening of the Alex Fraser Bridge, September 22, 1986. Alex cut the ribbon but Gertrude read his speech. The press took numerous pictures of the couple quietly, happily holding hands during the ceremony — this when they had 45 years of marriage behind them. Alex never obtained a voice synthesizer and by 1989 became too ill to attend sessions of the legislature. Initially he was hospitalized in Victoria. Gertrude spent an average of 16 hours a day at his side. His daughters or a niece would take a turn at his bedside so Gertrude could run some errand. Alex seemed to watch the clock and became very restless if his wife did not return at the promised time. BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Winter 2014 | Vol. 47 No. 4 23 He requested to be transferred to Quesnel and this was arranged. There were no hospice beds at that time. Devotees of this MLA subscribed sufficient funds in Alex's memory to create a 3 bed hospice unit. Also, the Frasers were invited by the provincial government to suggest a way that they could honour Alex. They requested that the government fund a social worker for the hospital. The hospital had asked for this earlier but had been turned down. A government position was created and is still in place; this was a half time social worker plus a half time palliative care volunteer coordinator. Alex Fraser died May 9, 1989. Gertrude, assisted by nurse Carol Weremy, carefully washed the body as she had been taught in nursing school and dressed him in the planned clothing before calling the undertaker. The funeral service was held at Quesnel Secondary School with friends, neighbours, supporters and virtually every member of the legislature in attendance. Then suddenly, at 78 years of age, Gertrude was alone. She drove to Victoria to close the house there. Mrs. Fraser doggedly went through the necessary procedures to tidy up loose ends. She was tired but soon mustered energy and enthusiasm for community activities in Quesnel. The Hospital Auxiliary Thrift Shop was one of her favorite places. There she not only helped the hospital, she also was in the company of good friends. Further, old timers made a point of stopping in to say "hello" when Gertrude was on duty. One by one other members of the Auxiliary ceased to drive their own vehicles. Gertrude automatically began offering a "lift" to those who needed it. They really appreciated her chauffeuring. Gertrude Fraser was one of Quesnel's favorite citizens and her memory is still respected. The nurse from Bienfait, Saskatchewan died at home on Monday, February 17, 2003. • Author's Note The information for this article came mainly from Nancy Lillienweiss of Quesnel who interviewed Gertrude Fraser several times in 2002 and 2003. The life of this prominent resident of Quesnel was compiled for Living Landscapes, a program sponsored by the Royal British Columbia Museum. Many thanks to Mrs. Lillienweiss for permitting the adaptation of her research. Naomi Miller Editor's Note Thank you to Glennis Zilm, life member of the B.C. History of Nursing Society, for her prompt and insightful answers to my questions about nursing shortages in the 1940s. Andrea Lister Endnotes 1. $66 CDN in 1937 converts to approximately $1,077 CDN in 2014 money; $85 ~ $1,388. "Inflation Calculator," Bank of Canada, accessed October 2, 2014, http://www. bankofcanada.ca/rates/related/inflation-calculator/ 2. There was an acute nursing shortage in the 1940s due to wartime demands for nursing, new hospitals being built and increasing demands by the public for hospitalization. Individual hospitals may have had policies prohibiting hiring married nurses but social conventions that frowned on wives who worked combined with limited transportation options (no second cars and scarcity of transit) and limited child care options made working challenging for married nurses. Nora Kelly, Quest for a profession: The history of the Vancouver General Hospital School of Nursing. (Vancouver: Vancouver General Hospital School of Nursing Alumnae Association, 1973), 113-115; Jayne Elliot, Michael Villeneuve, & Christopher Rutty, Canadian Nurses Association: One hundred years of service 1908-2008. Ottawa: Canadian Nurses Association. (Ottawa: Canadian Nurses Association, 2013) 61. # IE H %, ^ Lilienweiss, Nancy."Living andscapes: Gertrude Fraser, A ."RBCM, 2003. http://142.36.5.21/ perfraserbasin/gertrude/index. html tadian Nurses Association: http:// cna-aiic.ca/en/download-buy/history 3C history of Nursing: www. bcnursinghistory.ca J 24 BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Winter 2014 | Vol. 47 No. 4 Race Rocks Lighthouse by John Whittaker A rare excursion to the historic Race Rocks Lighthouse/ Provincial Ecological Reserve included sea lions and a history lesson about the value of this historic lighthouse. Thirty six members of the Victoria Historical Society experienced a rare treat on September 17, 2014 as three shifts of twelve were taxied out to Race Rocks in an 8.3 metre (27 foot) aluminum boat under the command of Courtney Edwards from the Lester B. Pearson College. The islands of Race Rocks are located just off the southern tip of Vancouver Island. We were lucky as it was a lightly overcast day with no wind or fog. None of us were prepared for what we came across as we gently edged our way to the jetty to disembark. Before us were hundreds of noisy, barking, stinking Stellar and California Sea Lions. As we stepped onto the cement dock, there were pinnipeds (seals) five metres (16 feet) to our right and many more on the rocks to our left perhaps — nine metre (30 feet) away. It was an extraordinary sight and experience and so much more realistic than the famous Sea Lion Caves in Oregon. The experience was so astonishing that for a few minutes we forgot about the massive black John A. Whittaker is a member of the BCHF Historic Trails and Sites Committee and on the executive of the Victoria Historical Society Council. Stellar Sea Lions, Race Rocks, September 17, 2013. BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Winter 2014 | Vol. 47 No. 4 25 Race Rocks To 1 ( Swartz JL N is a marine DuncanVj J Ecological Bay (l?) 4 Reserve V T located \ just off the (7) % 1 southern tip m\m0m—^' \'/^(l^U^Vk of Vancouver Island, about 16 km southwest """'©■ of Victoria, 14/ C T \TK. a. r^r British Columbia. y Fisgard X S/"^}? ^ f \ / Lighthouse Beacons ^^XJ f / Victoria *To Sooke .c-l ml o/ 7f "^Albert —/ Head Lester B. Pearson College. f William Mead ^. . A^ A 3 Race Rocks i a. UJ Juan De Fuca Strait 0 km 5 km 1 1 1 1 1 1 s and white granite block tower that loomed about 36 metres high (118 feet) in front of us. Our guide Garry Fletcher, Race Rocks' Educational Director took charge and gave us a little history of the rocks by first pointing out several ancient native burial rock clusters that are believed to be about 1500 years old. With a few steps we crossed to the other side of the island and came across even more sea lions relaxing on the southerly shore. Garry proceeded to give us the history of the lighthouse, commencing with the recognized need to safeguard shipping as more and more vessels started to arrive during the 1858 Fraser River gold rush. In 1859 Captain Richards of HMS Plumper and his official party recommended Race Rocks for the location of a lighthouse, as it was clearly visible from the entrance to Juan de Fuca Strait and also to the entrance to Esquimalt Harbour. It was also located twelve nautical miles (22 km) from the Olympic Peninsula in American Territory, the narrowest width between the two countries. In 1860 both the Race Rocks and Fishguard (now Fisgard) lights were constructed simultaneously, the former from large rusticated granite blocks and the latter from brick. There seems to be some controversy over whether the blocks came from Aberdeen, Scotland as ballast or if they were quarried locally. The Imperial government appropriated £7000 for the construction of both lighthouses with the Colony of BC paying for one half. It was proposed that the lantern was to be of a revolving type to contrast the American fixed beacons. Race Rocks lighthouse worked very well for many years except in heavy fog. It was eventually determined that a so called 'silent zone' existed. The Federal Department of Marine and Fisheries took over the operation of the lighthouse when BC joined Canada in 1871 but it wasn't until 1929 that the sound transference problem in the fog horns was solved. During those many decades many keepers were falsely accused of neglecting their duties operating the horns as many captains who ran onto the reef were unable to hear any sound from the old fog horns. The lighthouse is a pitched-face stone structure with a tapered cylindrical shaft having a base diameter of 5.8 metre (19 ft.) and 3.8 metre (12.5 ft.) at its top. The shaft is painted with three black and two white horizontal stripes and is known as an 'Imperial Lighthouse' design. The last black stripe is actually built from sandstone instead of granite. No other example of this type of lighthouse can be found west of the Great Lakes. According to a condition assessment done in 2007 (DFRP #17447), it was in fair condition but would require about 3.5 million dollars over the next 25 years to bring it back into its former condition. In 2009 a good start was made on its restoration. From 1978 Pearson College has been involved and working with the Provincial Government to preserve the island and its lighthouse and made a proposal to the government to manage the island and lighthouse for the purpose of using it as an ecological classroom for its students. In 26 BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Winter 2014 | Vol. 47 No. 4 1980 the Provincial Ecological Reserve was proclaimed and Pearson College became the caretaker and protector of the Islands; it has remained so until this present day. Previously the Federal Government had announced that they proposed to sell 970 lighthouses across Canada but by 2013, only 128 proposals were submitted across Canada to purchase and only two from BC. In June 2013 a proposal was submitted in the form of a petition from 25 Metchosin residents. It pointed out that the title to the island is in the name of the Provincial Crown and that the Coast Guard only held a lease for the footprint of the lighthouse on the island so there was not much to be purchased. In addition, that Pearson College had protected and maintained it for some time, at their expense. With this in mind the petitioners Our group of proposed that: Environment Canada assumes the maintenance of the lighthouse tower and creates a designation of a 'marine view-scape heritage'. Since Race Rocks and Fisgard lights were built and finished at the same time, Environment Canada should include them both as a 'National Maritime Historic Park'. The Department of Fisheries and Oceans would support the maintenance of the Race Rocks tower. twelve Victoria Historical Society members, Race Rocks Lighthouse. BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Winter 2014 | Vol. 47 No. 4 27 Race Rocks Lighthouse, constructed 1860. September 17, 2014. The proposal was declined on mostly financial priority grounds on September 21, 2013. At this point in time there are no purchasers willing to buy this lighthouse and no agreement from the federal government to do anything other than try to sell it. The Historic Trails, Sites and Personages Committee support this proposal and recommend to our members that the British Columbia Historical Federation gives what assistance and encouragement they can to Pearson College in this endeavor. Specifically that would include: Writing to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and asking them to continue to support the preservation of Race Rocks. Writing to BC Parks asking for more support in funding for the financing of the Ecological Reserve. Consider making a tax deductible donation to Pearson College, Race Rocks Protection. You may donate on line at https:community.pearsoncollege.ca/give. Our educational tour was arranged by Chris Blondeau, Director of Operations for Pearson College and his assistant Deanna Cuthbert. We were very fortunate to be allowed on the Rocks due to their exceptional environmental sensitivity. We highly recommend that you check out the 'Pearson College Remote Camera' website as it is full of information and a live video of the day to day activities of the wild life thereon. Anne Stewart, the Eco-Guardian and resident Marine Scientist on the Rocks posts a daily diary that documents the highlights of the day. (www. racerocks.ca) (http://pearsoncollege.ca/) • Are you a BCHF member interested in being a part of the creation of bringing the past to the present in the creation of British Columbia History? We are looking for volunteers to read submissions and provide feedback; recruit authors; select and submit articles to magazine award competitions; and promote the magazine. If you are interested in joining our British Columbia History Readers' Panel, please send expressions of interest to magazine@bchistory.ca. 28 BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Winter 2014 | Vol. 47 No. 4 After Pearl Harbor by Janet Mary Nicol After the attack on Pearl Harbor, a racially fueled murder case unfolds in Vancouver, forever altering the lives of two mothers. Jessie Hughes and Oiyo Uno lived in separate worlds during the war years, though their homes were in the same Vancouver neighborhood. In the tense winter days after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, these two women became known to each other through circumstances neither would have predicted or desired. Jessie, winter 1942 The relative calm of the Hughes' household was broken by the ring of the telephone on the morning of January 17, 1942. It was the police. A detective told Jessie's husband David Hughes that their 19 year old son Bob was being held as a suspect for a murder in Fairview Slopes committed the previous evening. Bob would be appearing in a police line-up to determine if eyewitnesses recognised him as the culprit. Oiyo, spring1907 When Oiyo Miyuki was 16 years old, her parents became aware of an eligible man from their district of Shaga, Japan who was seeking a wife. Kosaburo Uno was 28 years old and had been working in a saw mill in Vancouver for eight years. Oiyo's parents mailed a photograph of their daughter to Kosaburo. Soon after, he travelled from Vancouver back to his homeland to marry the girl in the picture. Oiyo was three months pregnant when Kosaburo brought her back to Vancouver aboard the steamship, the Kaga Maru, in the spring of 1907. Home for the young married couple was a small 'cabin' on 5th and Alberta Street in Fairview Slopes, a neighbourhood on the south slope of Vancouver's False Creek. Unlike her husband, Oiyo could not read or write. She would now learn English. The Unos lived in a Japanese-Canadian enclave given the name 'Kawamuko' ('the place across the river') by local residents.1 A short distance away, across the salty inlet, was a more populated enclave around the Powell Street area, called Nihonjin- machi, or Japanese Town. Oiyo delivered her first baby, a daughter named Kimiko, later that year. By 1923, the couple had three sons Yoshiyuki, Yukio and Katsumi and two more daughters, Haruko and Yaeko.2 As the family prospered, they moved to an apartment and then a house, still in Fairview Slopes. In 1927 Kosoburo bought a 16-unit apartment building and a bungalow. He planned to open a store within his new residence but was refused a business licence. The success of visible minorities was resented Janet Mary Nicol is a freelance writer with a special interest in BC history. She has been teaching social studies at Killarney Secondary in Vancouver since 1997. Oiyo Uno in Fairview Slopes in the early 1920s with her daughters Haruko and Yaeko. BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Winter 2014 | Vol. 47 No. 4 29 Yoshiyuki Uno at the beach. by some citizens. This attitude fed widespread prejudice toward people of Chinese and Japanese background and dated back to the city's pioneer days.3 That same year Kimiko, aged 19, died of tuberculosis, a loss that would be Oiyo's first sorrow. Oiyo's second child, Yoshi, now filled the role of eldest, at age 13. His fate was to give her more anguish. The Unos bought a two-storey home on the northwest corner of West 4th and Alberta Street in 1930. The couple were permitted a licence to open a small confectionary shop, selling groceries, candies and tobacco and lived in rooms behind the store. All Oiyo's children attended public school. The Unos were members of the Methodist church and participated in many organized activities within their community. Yoshi was the first to graduate at Fairview School of Commerce on West Broadway Avenue. Post-secondary opportunities were still limited because of discriminatory practices, so he trained as a furniture finisher and became part-owner in his father's business. Yoshi led a busy, active life enjoying sports such as bowling, baseball and golf.4 While Oiyo and her family worked hard through the depression years, Japan was empire-building in southeastern Asia and China. When war in Europe came in 1939, the Uno family's perseverance had given them much to be thankful for. The couple owned a home and a car and had investments. Their Canadian-born children were educated and self-reliant. Global conflict continued to unfold, bringing an ominous shift in Vancouver's race relations, surely felt by Oiyo and her family. It began when the Japanese government allied with Canada's enemies, Germany and Italy. If events escalated, the government wanted to keep track of 'enemy aliens' living in Canada who could become spies for their "homeland." As year's end approached, on December 7 the Japanese bombed Hawaii's Pearl Harbor, bringing the United States in to the war with Canada and her allies. Young Japanese- Canadian men attempted to volunteer as a show of loyalty but were turned down by the Canadian military. The city imposed a dawn to dust curfew in fear of an attack. The flame of the Japanese war memorial in Vancouver's Stanley Park—erected in honor of Japanese-Canadians who fought alongside other Canadians in the First World War—was extinguished. Under the War Measures Act the Unos and all other residents of Japanese heritage naturalized after 1922 were required to register by February 7, 1941 with the Registrar of Enemy Aliens.5 Early the next year, newspapers began reporting the government's intention to intern Japanese-Canadians living within a hundred mile zone of the BC coast. The Unos, like everyone else in the city, were on edge. Business slowed, as many were fired from jobs. The curfew also kept potential customers at home. A small number of Japanese-owned stores were robbed or vandalised and insurance companies began to withdraw policies. The prejudices Japanese-Canadians had ignored or simply suffered, now threatened their very well-being. For Oiyo, aged 51, and her family, that's when 'they came back.' 30 BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Winter 2014 | Vol. 47 No. 4 !■•■■' .. ■ (]■.: !' .■ . lnrf.ii tii-.ii : Odltil mtMIKT ; %. 'Vtmc&atitr TorJo/s Tides Evening Newspapei Owned, Controlled and Operated by Vancouver People VANCOUVER. BRITISH COLUMBIA, THURSDAY. JANUARY 9. 1941 *»*C Price 3 Cents mVmVUXmtXmJ^ MArine 1161 'Illegal' Japs In B.C. Will Be Deported Today_l In Britain IVor oven!* analysed by Fleet Street tertian, cabled /rn.n flic London Bureau o/ The Vancouver Sua. IWwriEHi-l9«J LONDON, Jan. ft—Six hundred German troop transport planes flew from Southern Austria Into Hnly ilurlnc trio porloil Irom December 33 to January 3, anil more have cone slnra- Turklsh newspapers continue to make striking comment on trio undcrlylnc icasons. HI nn bill'' newspaper Vnkll soy* ouirlcht tliai Germany has sent airplanes to Italy in (ear that I hi- (all of I'rwwcr Mussolini Is imminent. That. It Is Itcld. would mean thai Marshal Pleiro Budojrilo. who recently ve- Ottawa Orders \ | Registration for 'Own Protection' OTTAWA, JHn. 9.—Prime Minister Mackenzie King Wednesday night announced that a special ifRisiration of all Japnncso residents in British Columbia will be carried out In the near future "lo protect Ihe Japanese them- selves and to eliminate any illegal entrants who may in fact be In Canada." Mr. Kins Mid that the Ortenui situation In British Columbia if 'Veil In hand" ami thai It I* the Kovernmrvu's Intention lo keep It so. The Premier also announced appointment of a standing committee lo supervise the rcr; Is [ration. The tli i in-:- population i< I not lie Included In the reek Irntlon. lo be rawhirtrd shnr ly. Minx n sprelal rrchlrnMo Famous Building Wrecked by Hun Bombs British Push On 40 Miles Past Tobruk Ethiopian Forces Aided by RAF Drive Italians From Gubba; Gazala Airport Captured CAIRO, Jan. 9—Britain's swiftly advancing desert forces, paced by one of the heaviest and most widespread aerial assaults yet loosed by the ftoyal Air Force in the Battle of Africa, have pushed to Gazala, 120 miles inside Libya and 40 miles west of besieged Tobruk, the British Command announced officially today. Coupled with this announcement, the Middle East command reported that a native rebellion had forced Fascist troops to flee an outpost in Western Ethiopia. The light riins advance to Gazala was made yesterday by army units which swept around Tobruk to deliver a smashing assatrlt on the Italian base. This al lack was reported In RAF headhunt! ers announcement which said "the army lias just taken -10 aircraft and an abandoned airdrome at El Adorn, near Tobruk, and U5 _!_ : C_J : ■ I ' ■ ■ :■ !■:-■ ■ "■■■ ■■'■ iii _ Jessie, 1913 Jessie MacDonald Aungiers was still a school girl when her family emigrated from Redcar, Yorkshire in 1913, crossing the Atlantic on board the 'Lake Manitoba.' They settled in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, where Jessie's father worked for the Canadian Pacific Railway.6 Jessie's future husband, David Hughes had also immigrated to Canada from England as a child. His family was of Welsh origin and moved to Le Pas, Manitoba. David was working for the CPR several kilometres north of Moose Jaw, when he was conscripted to fight, aged 20, in 1917, in the First World War. When the conflict ended a year later, he stayed on in the Prairie town, returning to railway work and settling in to married life with Jessie, aged 19, in 19197 Their daughter, Doreen, was born the next year. The couple had a son, Robert in 1922.8 His fate would be darkly entwined with Jessie's —and many others surrounding him. Jessie had two more children, Ruby and Ronald, in the ensuing years. The young family lived with Jessie's parents, but eventually boarded in another residence a few blocks away. When the economic depression swept through North America in 1929, many Canadians living on the prairies began migrating west of the Rockies, in hope of a better life. Among them was the Hughes. David and Jessie arrived to the coast with their four children, renting a small house near the corner of Fraser Street in south Vancouver.9 After the blood-chilling cold of Saskatchewan winters, the Hughes now experienced mild, rainy days under low grey skies. The wide, copper-colored Fraser River was a short distance down a sloping road from their home. Along its banks Chinese-Canadian men cultivated long rows of vegetables to sell to customers around the city. Jessie's children fell in to the usual routines, walking to elementary school, and attending church on Sunday. David was a car inspector but in 1932, as the depression worsened, he was forced to take any labouring job he could find. Jessie knew moving from one rental house to another was difficult for her children, but she and her family endured, as did many working class people of the era. The Hughes' second home, in 1934, was on the tree-lined Welwyn Street, the road's name reflecting the origins of the area's Welsh settlers. Three years later, the family moved downtown by the Granville Street bridge. Robert—or Bob as he was called—had left Front page of January 9, 1941 Vancouver Sun. BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Winter 2014 | Vol. 47 No. 4 31 mW %s Kong k Almost 2000 soldiers from Canada were sent to defend the British colony of Hong Kong in the fall of 1941. On December 8th, Japan attacked. The battle lasted seventeen days and ended with the surrender of the allied forces. During the course of the battle, 290 Canadians were killed and 493 were wounded. A further 267 died during captivity. Out of the original 1,975 soldiers sent to Hong Kong, over 1,050 were either killed or wounded before the garrison was released after three and a half years in captivity. The battle meant that the war was no longer isolated to Europe, far from BC's shores. People in BC feared the Japanese threat could reach the pacific province. By January 14,1942 a 100 mile strip along BC's coast became a "protected area." Reports of the abuses of Canadian prisoners of war angered Ua. population and further duelled their fears. school, after completing grade eight.10 Jessie's parental hold inevitably loosened once her son's school days ended—if not earlier. Bob was expected to work and assist the family. The following year the Hughes boarded in a large, rambling house facing the Canadian National rail yards. Economic troubles began to lift when war broke out between England and Germany in 1939. Patriotic or not, young Canadian men could earn a paycheque in the military. The same year the Hughes made their final move as a family to Fairview Slopes, a neighborhood across an inlet with a view of the city centre and the blue mountain range beyond. They rented a house on Eighth Avenue, near Alberta Street, a short distance uphill from a corner store owned by the Chapmans and another by the Unos. The following summer as Jessie turned 40, British military forces, assisted by Canadians and other allies, were fighting for their very survival against Germany's brutal air raids. Jessie and her family had made it through the depression but with the world at war, her worries were far from mt over. Bob, now 18, had apprenticed in wire rope, and was working at Sea Island, near the city's airport. He was slightly taller than his father at 6 feet, with a lean build. Bob rented a suite close to his family's house and was steadily dating Jackie Doidge, a brown-haired young woman, two years younger. She lived with her widowed mother in the adjacent Kitsilano. neighborhood.11 The couple became engaged and Bob had a tattoo of a heart and scroll with the names, "Jackie and Bob" on his forearm. In January of 1941, with war across the Atlantic still raging Bob joined the Royal Canadian Artillary. He had a second tattoo— of his military number—displayed on his arm, a custom among some soldiers. Bob was a reluctant soldier however and enlisted to avoid completing a jail sentence for possession of a stolen clock, camera and flashlight. He served only one of three months in jail. Jessie and David must have hoped, given their son's youth, the military would straighten him out. Their hopes would not be realized however. Bob was absent from barracks without permission on five occasions and duly punished, including in one instance, a forfeit of three days' pay.12 During his time away from barracks, he was sinking deeper in to an underworld of prostitutes and criminals. That same winter of 1941, Jessie had an accident and injured her leg. As the new year arrived, her leg still wasn't healing properly. Jessie was also prone to seizures and required medication, further complicating her weakened condition.13 She was likely concerned about her enlisted son too, especially after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor 19 days before Christmas followed by the start of the Battle of Hong Kong where Canadian forces saw direct combat. Yet it was not war that would destroy Bob and the lives of those around him. Oiyo, Winter 1942 All but one of Oiyo's children were home on the evening of January 16, listening to a popular singer Lanny Ross, on the radio.14 There was barely any traffic in the neighborhood. A fog horn sounded on the inlet as a mist settled over the darkened rows of houses in 'Kawamuko.' Oiyo sat in a chair by a curtained doorway separating the living room from the confectionary shop. Her husband was by the stove. Yoshi and two of his siblings were on the couch, his sister on a chair. The youngest child, Bobby, aged 18, was away, receiving a treatment for tuberculoisis. At about 8:30 pm Oiyo heard the bell chime over the store's door. Oiyo moved through the curtain and saw three young white men enter, all in civilian clothes. She recognized them from the previous week, when they had come in to the shop and behaved strangely. The tall customer with wavy black hair said he wanted cigarettes. When Oiyo moved 32 BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Winter 2014 | Vol. 47 No. 4 behind the counter, he took out a pistol with a long barrel. 'This is a hold up,' he told her, leaning over and grabbing two dollars from the till. His companion also held a gun and the third man flashed a knife. "They came back," Oiyo cried out in Japanese. The Uno family knew from these words their mother was in danger. The tall man walked toward the curtain separating the store from the living room. He raised his gun and fired in to the sliding wooden panel. Oiyo saw smoke coming from the gun's barrel. Then she heard her son cry out in pain. The tall man shot again and stepped back from the curtain. Another cry came from her son. Seconds later Yoshi burst in to the store, blood pouring from a wound to his hand and arm. He leaped at the gunman, while his two companions ran toward the exit. Oiyo's younger son, Yukio, rushed out behind his wounded brother. That's when a third shot rang out. Yoshi was on the ground, blood coming from his head. Yukio flew over his brother's fallen body, chasing all three men as they ran out the door. He stuck out his leg, causing a shoe to slip off one of the men's feet. All escaped down the alley. An engine sounded as a car sped off—a fourth accomplice at the wheel. 'Call an ambulance' Oiyo cried out. She stood at the door, tears streaming down her face, looking out as the car disappeared in to the night. Oiyo picked up the shoe as she turned and came back in to the store. Her daughter Yaeko was trying to dial the telephone for help, screaming and crying hysterically. The youngest daughter, Haruko, pulled the phone from her and made the emergency call. Oiyo's neighbours, the Sugies and their son, appeared at the entrance. They watched in shock as Oiyo's husband, who had rushed in to the store behind his children, knelt over their son. Yoshi was groaning in pain, blood hemorrhaging from his head. Youth Shot During Holdup Struggle Three men are held by police and were to face an identification line-up this afternoon in connection with the cowardly murder of Yoshiyuki Uno, 27, Japanese furniture manufacturer, during a holdup in his parents' confectionery store at Fourth Avenue and Alberta Street Friday night. Uno was shot as he struggled $ with one of the bandits to protect other members of his family. tt Five minutes beforo tlio shooting, three men, thought to bo the s'ayers, held up Chapman's confectionery btorc, 2333 Columbia Street, and oi* enped with SSO after ono of thorn tired a wild shot Into a Khclf. The three suspects wore brought In by police after they Investigated an assault complaint at a West Pender Street rooming house. Two men and a 17-year-old girl who were In the same rooming hous-i, are held for Investigation in connection with the assault. ASKED FOR CIGARETTES At the Japanese store, the leader of the throe' thugs grabbed $2 from the cash register before pumping three shots Into Yoshiyuki Uno. -Uno, left lying In the middle of the floor, was taken to Vancouver General Hospital In an Exclusive Service ambulance, and died at 9:10 p.m. Tho victim's parents, two sisters and brother saw him shot down as, his left hand bleeding from the first shot, he tried to wrest * revolver from tho gunman. Mrs. Oiyo Uno, Yoshlyukl's mother, was In "the front of the Page 17 of January 17, 1942 Vancouver Sun under the headline "Police Hold Three Suspects in Murder of City Japanese. BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Winter 2014 | Vol. 47 No. 4 33 Another neighbor across the alley, Violet Ellis, had looked out her front window when she heard the gun fire. She saw Oiyo coming out of the store crying, and knew something was wrong. Violet now joined the Sugies at the store's entrance. When medical help finally arrived, attendants carried Yoshi out on a stretcher, with his youngest sister, Haruko at his side. Oiyo stood on the street, watching the vehicle doors slam shut. Yoshi died soon after the ambulance arrived at Vancouver General Hospital. Jessie, Winter, 1942 "Don't let my folks know or my girlfriend," Bob said to a detective when he was brought to the police station. "I can't make any promises," the officer replied. Bob denied knowing anything about a shooting in Fairview Slopes. He told the detective he had been in a beer parlour downtown that past evening and then went dancing at the Embassy Ballroom.15 The police had evidence to believe otherwise. William Billamy was held as an accomplice to the murder of Yoshi Uno. Floyd Berrigan and John Petryk were apprehended soon after, also held as accomplices.16 Rosella Lillian Gorovenko was taken to a women's detention centre for further questioning. The police would learn she was not with the four male suspects at the crime scene but helped plan the hold-ups at both the Uno store and earlier that night, at the Chapmans' confectionary store on nearby Columbia Street. Jessie and her family waited in dread as the wheels of justice turned. A week after the shooting, Bob and his three associates, Floyd, John and William, were charged with first degree murder. Justice Sydney Smith presided over the trial, beginning Monday, April 13 in the downtown Vancouver courthouse, along with a jury of twelve men. Bob was represented by defence lawyer, George R. Annable. Each of the other three accused also had a lawyer. Several soldiers, sympathetic to the young men, were among an overflow crowd of spectators. Bob's brother, Ronald attended on the first day, as noted by one of the daily newspapers. Other members of the Hughes family would appear over the ensuing week. Rosella Gorovenko agreed to testify as a Crown witness, avoiding charges as an accomplice. She told the court she obtained the gun for Bob to use in the hold-ups. William and John stole a car to use for the robberies, she also revealed. A week before the crime, Rosella was with Bob and his companions to scout out the Uno and Chapman stores. She admitted, when pressed by the defense, she had hoped Bob would marry her but denied she was turning on him now because she was jealous of his fiance, Jackie. "The Japanese has as much a right to live as anyone else," she told the court.17 Bob's fiance took the stand, appearing as a reluctant witness for the Crown. Jackie was described as a "smartly dressed" brunette in a newspaper report who "smiled frequently" at Bob. Jackie said she expected to marry Bob and told the court on the night in question, Bob came to her home to take her dancing. Travelling by streetcar downtown to the Embassy Ballroom, Jackie said Bob had told her he had come from Fairview Slopes and "there had been two holdups and a Jap had been shot." After Jackie's testimony, Bob was led away. His eyes "clung to Jackie's," according to the Vancouver Sun newspaper, "until he disappeared down the steel stairway with the other accused."18 As the evidence against Bob mounted, it became too much for his mother to watch. Jessie remained at home, "looking at a picture of her son and talking about him," according to a newspaper report. That evening, Jessie, still suffering from an injured leg, was rushed to hospital in a semi-conscious condition. Her daughter had called an ambulance after she had fallen asleep over dinner, in reaction to medication she had just taken.19 Jessie's husband wasn't holding up well either. David collapsed in the hallway outside the court room on the final day of testimony, as his son's fate was placed in the hands of the jury.20 Oiyo, spring, 1942 Oiyo took the stand to testify on the second day of the trial. She was assisted with her testimony, given in halting but functional English, by Yadasu Ide, a court interpreter. 34 BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Winter 2014 | Vol. 47 No. 4 Among a crowd of white faces, Oiyo saw Japanese-Canadian neighbors and supporters, many sitting in the court's balcony. A reporter for the New Canadian, the only Japanese- Canadian newspaper permitted to continue publishing, regularly attended the trial too.21 Oiyo masked her grief as Crown lawyer Alfred Bull led her through the events of the evening of January 16. She testified the accused had shot at Yoshi twice and when her son confronted him, the pair had wrestled with the gun. That's when a third and fatal shot was fired. She was asked once again to identify Yoshi Ono's killer. Oiyo turned to face the four accused men sitting beside their lawyers in the hushed courtroom. She pointed to the tall 19 year old man in military uniform with wavy dark hair. Oiyo was uncertain of the identities of the other three men, but she knew this man, Bob Hughes, who had not been in soldier's uniform on the night of the hold-up, had killed her son.22 Yukio's testimony contradicted his mother on a crucial point. He believed the third gun shot fired by the accused was deliberate— not accidental. The robber turned around as he was fleeing the store, Yukio asserted, and intentionally shot his brother in the head.23 The jury requested to see the crime scene on that second day of testimony. Justice Smith agreed and on Wednesday the twelve men, as well the judge, four lawyers and the handcuffed young men they represented, made the trip over the bridge to the Uno's corner store. Kosaburo met the group, leading them across the store's threshold to the scene of the hold-up and shooting.24 As the trial proceeded each day, strong feelings among Vancouver residents emerged, some of the debate preserved in letters to the city newspapers. Four 'whites' facing the death penalty for killing a 'Japanese' seemed wrong, many believed, in a time when young Canadian soldiers were dying in the Pacific war. Others, including the judge, claimed the victim's family had the same legal rights as anyone else.25 "I know of only one law in Canada that is administered throughout the whole of the Dominion," Justice Smith told the jury, on the final day of the trial. "It protects the last, lowliest and least just as much as the first, highest and best. The family of the holdup victim is entitled to your best consideration just as much as are the prisoners." The judge pointed out that while Hughes was accused of the actual killing of Yoshi Uno, the other three accused, Berrigan, Petryk and Billamy, were equally responsible. 'It is all, or nothing,' Justice Smith told the jury. Either all four men were guilty of the death of Yoshi Uno, or none at all.26 The jury began their deliberation in the early Friday evening and returned three hours later. The courtroom fell silent. The foreman, Arthur van Fleck, stood only to announce there was no verdict. Jury members were exhausted and knowing they carried a heavy responsibility, wanted more time. The judge agreed to reconvene the next day. On Saturday morning, after further deliberation, van Fleck gave a verdict—guilty. "But my Lord," the foreman said, "under the circumstances, we the jurors recommend the strongest possible plea for mercy for the four men."27 Justice Smith, bound by law, sentenced each of the four young men to hang. The date of execution was set for July 15. "Condemed to Die" ran the caption in the article in The Province, April 1942. "Private Roberts Hughes, 19 C.A.S.C, was found guilty of firing the shot which killed Yoshiyuki Uno, 21- year old Japanese during a hold-up of his father's store, 305 West Fourth on January 16. 'You're crazy,' he shouted to the jury after the verdict was returned." The other three accused men, William Billamy, Floyd Berrigan, and John Petryk were also sentenced to hang. BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Winter 2014 | Vol. 47 No. 4 35 Jessie, spring, 1942 Jessie travelled across the city's west side to the Dunbar residence of Angelo Branca, a highly regarded criminal lawyer. She came to plea for his assistance on her son's behalf.28 Mr. Branca admitted Jessie into his sitting room. He was well-aware of the sensational murder case. He knew her son was on death row at Oakalla Prison Farm in Burnaby, site of executions since 1919. Branca had saved many clients from the hangman's noose using his legal knowledge and oratory courtroom skills, but not all. He also understood a mother's desperation over her son's fate. Jessie pleaded with him to take on the appeal. After listening carefully to his visitor, Branca agreed to represent Bob. He would read over the court transcript and working with the lawyers representing the other accused men, search for ways to challenge the trial evidence and proceedings. Branca requested Jessie's husband visit his downtown office the next day. Jessie was grateful, telling Branca she would spend the rest of her life, if she had to, paying him back. Oiyo, Summer and Autumn 1942 In September, Oiyo and her family headed to the train, among the last Japanese- Canadian families to leave the city. They were allowed two suitcases each. The internment of 22,000 Japanese men, ages 18 to 45 had started in February. In March, more people were rounded up and taken to the Vancouver's Hastings Park in Vancouver. The Uno's property and investments were seized by the government, along with thousands of others, never to be returned. A train delivered the Uno family to Lemon Creek, an internment camp in BC's East Kootenay region.29 They unpacked and settled in to their new home, one of 300 shacks built on a hillside. Oiyo may have prepared for the worst as the case went through the appeal courts. She—and most Canadians—would not have been aware the federal government was monitoring the legal proceedings because of its implications in war-time Canada. As the Unos hunkered down for their first snowy winter in Lemon Creek, they received news from the Crown lawyers. The Supreme Court justices upheld the decision of the BC Court of Appeal on November 12, leading the way to a re-trial.30 A re-play of the court case, with fewer Crown witnesses available, occurred in Vancouver one year to the day of the first trial. This time Angelo Branca acted as defense counsel for Bob Hughes. The three other accused men had the same legal counsel as for the first trial. Oiyo and her son and daughter were given special permission to return to the city. On the stand, Oiyo was remarkably composed, given all she experienced over the past year. She was "neatly dressed in pearl grey with a light straw hat," according to a newspaper report.31 Once again Oiyo summoned all her strength, re-living her son's death through her testimony. Jessie, spring 1943 When David heard the jury foreman read the verdict at the re-trial, he was elated. His son and the other three accused men were found guilty of manslaughter, not first degree murder. David rushed over to Angelo Branca and pumped his hand vigorously, thanking him for saving his son's life.32 Jessie's reaction must have been one of relief. Despite having to suffer a ten year prison term, along with the three other men, her son would still be young when he was released. He would get a second chance. The events since January 16, 1942 had taken a toll on the Hughes family and Jessie needed help running the household. Isabelle White, a widow with grown children, was hired as a live-in housekeeper. By 1945, Jessie was no longer residing in the family home.33 Her marriage had fallen apart. Oiyo, spring, 1943 The man who killed Yoshi would get out of prison one day—but her son was gone. Oiyo returned to Lemon Creek after the second trial, enduring the first of three bitterly cold winters with her husband and four children. Oiyo's son Bobby died during their last year at Lemon Creek as a result of tuberculosis, a medical condition he had long endured.34 All Oiyo, her husband and three 36 BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Winter 2014 | Vol. 47 No. 4 Top: Two months before they were summoned back to Vancouver for April 1943 second trial in the slaying of Yoshiyuki Uno, Oiyo Uno and her daughter Yaeko are seen outside their Lemon Creek cabin. Bottom: Japanese Internment camp at Lemon Creek, circa 1944. BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Winter 2014 | Vol. 47 No. 4 37 The March 1964 headline in the Vancouver Sun makes a bold statement about Robert Hughes' death. Oiyo Uno in her post-war Montreal years. She lived in the city to the end of her life. Uno family photo. remaining children could do now, was wait for peace to come. Jessie, 1957 In 1957, Jessie moved from Vancouver, leaving behind her four grown children and grandchildren. She began a new life in Kamloops with James Patrick Cullen, a widower and a guard for the BC government.35 Her ex-husband stayed in the city and married his former housekeeper, Isabelle. David and Isabelle left Fairview Slopes in 1947 and moved to a bungalow in south Vancouver, where they lived out their days. Jessie's wish for her son, expressed when she summoned all her strength to knock on the door of the city's top defense lawyer, would not come true. Bob's 'fresh start' began when he was released from prison at age 25, after serving six years. He worked as a car salesman and married Ada Margaret. Then in 1964, when Bob was 41 years old, he appeared in court, along with another male suspect, for possession of stolen property. The judge in front of Bob was none other than Angelo Branco, the former lawyer who had saved him from execution when he was a 19 year old soldier. Unsettled by this coincidence, Bob requested a delay in the proceedings. Bob drove his car to a side street in New Westminster the following day, parking close to a family member's home. He pulled out a gun. When his body was later recovered, the coroner determined he died of a self-inflicted bullet wound to the head.36 Suicide Does What Gallows Couldn't H. from the riJ)Q*m In ■xi ipped-court ipp*JWnt iuic-kir *Vrtl !H2 by la tr, David lived another three years after his son's suicide, to age 70. Jessie fared less well. Toward the end of November, more than a year after Bob's death, she came down with bronchial pneumonia. Three days later, aged 65, Jessie Hughes died of heart failure. Oiyo, summer 1945 "Go east or go home," the government told 'coastal' Japanese-Canadians, after the Japanese surrendered in August, 1945. Oiyo and her family moved to Montreal. They could have moved back to Vancouver after 1949, when the discriminatory federal policy was struck down, but they did not. Instead, the Unos settled in a solid stone house, which still exists, in Montreal's Le Plateau-Mont-Royal neighborhood. Kosaburo wrote private memoirs for his inheritors, before he died at age 88. Not mentioned is the night of January 16 in the days after the Pearl Harbor attack.37 Oiyo Uno, who also lived to age 88, passed on an intangible gift to her descendants—her survival with strength and dignity, in the face of tremendous loss.* 38 BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Winter 2014 | Vol. 47 No. 4 Endnotes 1. Stewart Muir, Merciful Injustice, A Six-part Series, Vancouver Sun, September 21 to September 26, 2013. 2. A family tree of the Uno family is available online. http://kappafun. tripod.com/Kosaburo%20Uno%20 descendents/Dl .htm 3. For a depiction of this era, see A White Man's Province: British Columbia Politicians and Chinese and Japanese Immigrants 1858-1914, by Patricia E. Roy, UBC Press, 1989^ 4. A remembrance of Yoshyuki Uno in the New Canadian newspaper, January 21,1942, 3. 5. For a depiction of this era, see Nicol, Eric. Vancouver. Toronto: Doubleday Canada, 1970. 6. 1901 England census and 1911; Aungiers household; Ancestry.com; (database on-line) Provo, UT, USA. Aungiers household; 1916; Census Place: Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan; 17A; Roll: T-2193, Page 24, Family No. 274. 7. Ancestry.com, Soldiers of the First World War, 1914-1918 (database on-line), Provo, UT, USA. Original data: Canada. Soldiers of the First World War (1914-1918). Record Group 150, Accession 1992-93/166, Box 4930 - 35. Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa. (David John Hughes). 8. Aungiers household; 1921; Census Place: Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan; Ref. No: RG 31; Folder Number 156; page no. 28; birth date/place in Robert Horace Hughes, BC death certificate, February 28,1964,1964-09-004058 9. Vancouver Henderson Directories, starting in 1929, give David J. Hughes and Jessie Hughes' residential address and occupation each year. 10. Robert Horace Hughes, Penitentiary Reception Card (No. 5521); Accession: 1985-86/526, Box 6; National Archives of Canada, gives biographic details: he has grade 8 education, describes his tattoos and he has served one month previous to the murder charge in gaols. 11. Stewart Muir, Merciful Injustice, A Six-part Series. Also Vancouver directories indicate Doidge family residence in Kitsilano. 12. Stewart Muir, Merciful Injustice, A Six-part Series. 13. Vancouver Sun, Thursday, April 16,1942,15. 14. Court transcript, Vancouver Sun newspaper accounts, various. 15. A detective's testimony provides a description of his conversation with Robert Hughes after he was arrested. (Court transcript, pp. 339-340). 16. King versus Hughes, et al, April 13 to 18,1942 (GR-0419 File 22/1942, in boxes 507 and 508); Vancouver Sun newspaper accounts, April 14 to 18,1942; Coronor's Inquest of Yoshyuki Uno, January 23,1942. (BC Archives) 17. Vancouver Sun, Tuesday, April 14,1942,13. 18. Vancouver Sun, Thursday, April 16,1942,15. 19. Vancouver Sun, Thursday, April 16,1942,15. 20. Vancouver Sun, Saturday April 18,1942, 9. 21. The New Canadian newspaper, Vancouver, April 1942 editions. 22. Vancouver Sun, Wednesday, April 15,1942,1. 23. Vancouver Sun, Wednesday, April 15,1942,1. 24. Vancouver Sun, Wednesday, April 15,1942,1. 25. Vancouver Sun, Tuesday, April 21,1942,4 (editorial); Vancouver Sun, Wednesday, April 22,1942 (letters). 26. Vancouver Sun, Friday, April 18, 1942,19. 27. Vancouver Sun, Saturday, April 18,1942,1. 28. Angelo Branca's memoir, Gladiator of the Courts, Angelo Branca, Douglas & Mclntyre, Vancouver, 1981; Transcription of Interview with Angelo Branca, UBC Law Library. 29. Stewart Muir, Merciful Injustice. 30. Supreme Court of Canada, King versus Hughes, et al, November, 1942. 31. Second trial held April 13 to 17, 1943, followed daily in various city newspapers. 32. Vancouver Sun, Monday, April 19,1943, 8. 33. Isabelle is listed as a housekeeper in the 1942 Vancouver directory; Jessie Hughes is no longer listed in 1944. The Vancouver voter's list, 1945, indicates David Hughes and Mrs. Isabelle (White) Carlyle, housekeeper are at the same address. Isabelle's name continues to appear alongside David Hughes in the Vancouver directory from 1947 to David's death in 1967. She is named as his wife on his death certificate and in the newspaper obituary. David John Hughes death certificate - BC Archives, vital statistics, 67-09-013833 and Hughes obituary, Vancouver Sun, October 16,1967, give names of his and Jessie's three surviving children. 34. Stewart Muir, Merciful Injustice. 35. Kamloops directories, 1957 to 1965; Jessie MacDonald Cullen death certificate, BC, 1965; obituary in Kamloops Daily Sentinel newspaper, November 29,1965, 3. 36. Robert Horace Hughes, death certificate, Vancouver Sun newspaper accounts; Angelo Branca, Gladiator of the Courts. 37. Stewart Muir, Merciful Injustice. Acknowledgements The author would like to thank Stewart Muir for generously sharing his research on the Uno family and also appreciates M. Diane Rogers' genealogy skills in tracing Jessie Hughes after she separated from David Hughes in 1944. 32th Annual Lieutenant- Governor's Award for Historical Writing of non-fiction books published in 2014 by authors of B.C. History, (reprints not eligible) Entry deadline: December 31, 2014 British Columbia Historical Federation All entrants must contact Maurice Guibord before submitting books, at writing@bchistory.ca or 604-253-9311 Winner of 2013 Lieutenant-Governor's Medal for Historical Writing: Ralph Drew for Forest & Fjord: The History of Belcarra BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Winter 2014 | Vol. 47 No. 4 39 Archives & Archivists by Barbara Bell; edited by Sylvia Stopforth Sylvia Stopforth is a Librarian and Archivist at Norma Marion AUoway Library at Trinity Western University. Between 1982 and 2005 Barbara Bell served as the Education/ Interpretation Coordinator for the Vernon Museum, developing and delivering school programming and creating exhibits. Since 2005 she has taken on the role of Archivist. Major Allan Brooks, famed ornithologist and wildlife illustrator, lived in the Okanagan for over 40 years. The Vernon Museum and Archives celebrates Brooks' work. Internationally acclaimed Canadian ornithologist and wildlife illustrator Allan Cyril Brooks was a resident of Okanagan Landing, Vernon BC from 1905 to 1946. Born in India in 1869, Allan was the third son of William Edwin Brooks and his wife, Mary Jane Renwick, both of Newcastle-on-Tyne, England. Allan's father was a civil engineer working with the East Indian Railroad, and also a keen amateur ornithologist studying birdlife in India and collecting bird specimens (skins) for the British Museum. As a mere toddler Allan began to demonstrate an interest in his father's study of natural history. Sent off to school in England at the age of five, he spent many hours exploring the Northumberland moors, a pastime he preferred to that of playing sports or board games. While in England Allan met, and was influenced by, several of his father's well known naturalist friends including John Hancock, who taught him the basics of taxidermy. In 1881 William Brooks retired from his job in India and moved his family to eastern Canada, to take up farming. Visits to the Brooks' Ontario farm by many of William's leading naturalist friends served to feed Allan's enthusiasm for natural history and expand his knowledge of the collecting and making up of bird skins. Another move in 1887 took the Brooks family to Chilliwack, BC. There, at the age of nineteen, Allan began to compile a 131-page illustrated "Field Guide to British Columbia Birds", for his friend Sydney Williams. Over the next few years, as Allan helped his father with farming, he also read, sketched, and began to generate income Noted wildlife painter Allan Brooks working on one of his paintings, 1939. 40 BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Winter 2014 | Vol. 47 No.4 by hunting and collecting bird and animal specimens to sell to noted ornithologists and natural history museums. A secondary source of income was offered by the fleas living on these specimens, as they were in demand by the Rothschild family of England, who were making an extensive collection and study of them. Two methods were employed by Allan in gathering fleas from his specimens. Smaller animals would simply be left in a lidded box overnight, with the fleas deserting their dead hosts to cluster under the lid of the box by morning. In the case of large animals, Allan would work with their skinned pelts, wrapping them around his own body so the fleas would migrate from the dead animal to his warm skin! Several new species were discovered thanks to Brook's efforts, with one especially rare flea being christened "Nearctopsylla Brooksi" in his honour. In 1897 Brooks began spending time in the Okanagan, attracted by the abundance of birds and wildlife to study and paint. In 1905 he decided to make his permanent home at Okanagan Landing on Okanagan Lake, just south of Vernon. His one-acre property became a sanctuary for small birds, with an average of 34 species nesting there each year. Brooks was credited with a photographic memory which assisted him in reproducing images of birds, wildlife, and scenery in his studio at home with as much detail and accuracy as if he was painting them on location. His first illustrations were published in Recreation magazine in the late 1890s, and the first major publication incorporating his illustrations was Dawson and Bowles' Birds of Washington, published in 1909. An expert marksman, Brooks was selected in 1914 to compete in the National Rifle Matches at Bisley, England, as a member of the Canadian team. With the outbreak of WWI he enlisted with the Canadian armed forces where he served with distinction, attaining the rank of Major and receiving the Distinguished Service Order for his war-time efforts. Following his discharge in 1919 Brooks returned to Okanagan Landing to resume collecting and painting. Forty-eight of his full colour drawings, plus forty-four black and white sketches, were published in the four- volume Birds of California set in 1923. A bachelor until the age of 57, Allan married Marjorie Holmes in 1926, and they had a son, Allan Cecil Brooks. In the late 1920s the Brooks family established a winter home at Comox on Vancouver Island, but continued to live at Okanagan Landing the rest of the year. While wintering on Vancouver Island with his wife in November of 1945, Major Brooks fell ill with a stomach disorder, and died on January 3rd, 1946. Throughout his life Brooks had travelled extensively in Canada, the United States, New Zealand, Australia, England, Ceylon, India, and the Mediterranean, ever increasing his knowledge of bird life and spreading his fame as a bird and wildlife illustrator. His accurate reproductions of birds appeared in numerous publications, as well as on many other items including collectable art cards and even school scribblers. In 2001 Allan Brooks was designated a person of national historic significance by the Canadian government. The Greater Vernon Museum & Archives celebrates Allan Brooks' legacy in a gallery featuring the Field Guide he created for his friend Sydney Williams in 1888, and many of his paintings. The museum and archives hold approximately eighty pieces of Brooks' work, as well as collections of related artifacts, publications, and archival records. To learn more about this or our other collections, visit our website at http://vernonmuseum.ca/ index.html.* Formal portrait of Major Allan Brooks, 1930. (Pittaway Photo, Ottawa). BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Winter 2014 | Vol. 47 No. 4 41 From the Book Review Editor's Desk K. Jane Watt The Mug in the Mugshot Anew wave of history books is upon us. Histories of our impolite, perhaps impolitic, past are now gaining a loyal following. They delve into cultures of temperance and intemperance and consider social constructions of identity and loyalty, all the while lending resonance to modern debates about personal freedoms and the role of the state. Daniel Francis' beautifully produced Closing Time: Prohibition, Rum-Runners, and Border Wars, a history of North American prohibition from a Canadian perspective (Douglas & Mclntyre, 2014) $39.95 records the era of "the so-called Cold Water Army...led by zealots and prudes preaching hellfire and damnation" and reflects on the legacies of prohibition, both good and bad. Anvil Press' new book, Vancouver Confiden tial ($20) lends voice to other silent corners of our past and promotional I material from , Anvil Press I argues that in I this collection, I "We honour the chorus line behind the star performer, the mug in the mugshot, the victim in the murder, the teens in the gang, and the 'slum' in the path of the bulldozer. By focusing on the stories of the common people rather than community leaders and headliners, Vancouver Confidential shines a light on the lives of Vancouverites so long ignored." John Belshaw has pulled together an impressive list of historians across many genres whose Vancouver subjects range from vaudeville to fine art and beyond. Storytellers and historians all, they are: Tom Carter (vaudeville and early Vancouver music specialist), Aaron Chapman (author of Liquor, Lust, and the Law: The Story of Vancouver's Legendary Penthouse), Jesse Donaldson (author of This Day in Vancouver), James Johnstone (history walksinvancouver.blogspot. ca), Eve Lazarus (Sensational Vancouver), Diane Purvey (co-author of Vancouver Noir: 1930-1960), Catherine J. Rose (crime analyst and tour guide for the Vancouver Police Museum's "Sins of the City" walking tours), Lani Russwurm (blogger and author of Vancouver Was Awesome), Roasanne Amosovs Sia (author of the chapter "Crime and its Punishments in Chinatown" in the book Vancouver Confidential), Jason Underhill (creator of the website illustratedvancouver.ca under the header "Vancouver British Columbia rendered in art"), Terry Watada (Toronto novelist, poet, and playwright whose chapter reflects on complicated loyalties in Japanese BC), Stevie Wilson (writer of the documentary about depression-era Vancouver called Catch the Westbound Train), and Will Woods (founder and chief storyteller of Forbidden Vancouver Walking Tours). These new editions alert us, again, to the salve of time. As it passes, it quietly erases rough edges, shades of argument, even the unsightly provenance of the wealth of admired local philanthropists. But digging in ephemera and encouraging talk across silence can revive lost tales. Editor Belshaw astutely points out, too, what our readers and members know already: history today is a living thing happening all around us even as it is encapsulated in books and in classrooms. "On any given spring day," he writes, "there are more people learning about Vancouver's history from the contributors to this book than there are in every undergraduate British Columbia history class in the world combined. Between the bloggers, the book authors, the journalists, the artists, the museum speakers, and the historic tour guides, together they might encounter a couple of hundred interested parties in an afternoon (weather permitting). They shape public understanding of this city and, at the same time, nurture curiosity about Vancouver and its people in a way that is very ecumenical." In this issue we have reviews about books making visible other forgotten worlds — of attitude, disease, place, and nautical lore. Enjoy, Jane 42 BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Winter 2014 | Vol. 47 No. 4 Book Reviews Books for review should be sent to: K. Jane Watt, Book Review Editor, British Columbia History Box 1053, Fort Langley BC V1M 2S4 The Voyage of the Komagata Maru: The Sikh Challenge to Canada's Colour Bar. by Hugh J.M. [Johnston. [(Vancouver: |University of British Columbia Press, 12013) $29.95. Released last year to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the summer of the Komagata Maru, this expanded and revised edition of a 1989 book should force us to take another look at British Columbia's racist past. Johnston has remarked on his good fortune in being able to revisit his previous work: "this is not just a re-release, but virtually a new book. How many people get a chance to do a major overhaul on a book twenty-five years after if first appeared and nearly forty years after they first started the research? My perspective has changed over the decades...so has the Sikh community." Canadians did not like Asians, and did everything they could to bar their official entry to Canada. There is no better example of their actions than the incident of the Komagata Maru, the vessel chartered to challenge Canada's immigration laws in 1914. The ship was in Burrard Inlet for two months that summer, with most of its Punjabi passengers denied permission to land. Passengers were harassed by immigration officials and suffered due to a lack of food and water. Johnston's original book was a comprehensive examination of the summer of stalemate, and his new book takes his original work much further. He places the Komagata Maru incident in the context of the racism here as well as in the differing factions in the Punjabi community along the West Coast. He also explores the bitterness felt in India, which was under the thumb of British rule at the time. British authorities were determined to stop any trouble before it started, and their determination resulted in a tough attitude that made tensions worse. The ship's voyage resulted, directly or indirectly, in the deaths of at least two dozen people, with most of them killed in a clash with authorities on their return to India. An immigration inspector in Vancouver was also killed, felled by an assassin in the courthouse months after the Komagata Maru left Vancouver. The story has strong connections to Victoria. In 1913 another vessel — the Panama Maru — docked in Victoria with potential immigrants from India. Only 38 of its 56 passengers were given the legal right to remain. All of the new arrivals spent time in the immigration building close to Ogden Point. Their successful entry into Canada encouraged a larger contingent the next year — the 376 who arrived on the chartered Komagata Maru in May 1914. As is so often the case with books on history, maps would have helped, especially when the book is covering territory that is likely unfamiliar to most readers, such as the towns and cities in India where the ship's passengers ended up. A map might have helped the author as well — it's frustrating to read an obvious error, such as Active Pass being placed in American waters. Johnston writes that, on the ship's voyage to Vancouver, a Japanese crew member jumped overboard near an American island about 30 kilometres from Victoria, and later specifies Active Pass as the location of the incident. In May 1914, the Daily Colonist and the Victoria Daily Times mentioned the jump in their coverage of the Komagata Maru. Both said it occurred at Turn Point, which is on Stuart Island in Washington state, just across the line from Moresby Island. That location makes sense. Geographical errors don't help, given that the story told in this book is complicated enough as it is. But they should not dissuade the reader. The story of the Komagata Maru is an important one and it needs to be remembered. Reviewer Dave Obee is a historian, journalist, and genealogist. He is editor-in-chief of the Victoria Times Colonist, the man behind Dave Obee's Family History Page, and author of, among other books, Counting Canada: A Genealogical Guide to the Canadian Census (2012) and The Library Book: A History of Service to Canada (2011). A Steady Lens: the True Story of Pioneer Photographer Mary Spencer. by Sherril Foster. l(Halfmoon [Bay: Caitlin Press, 12013) l$22.95. Mary Spencer (1857-1938) was an accomplished professional photographer in Kamloops from 1899 to 1909, yet few outside the Kamloops area know of Mary Spencer's photography. Generations of Canadians recognize her quintessential photograph of "gentleman bandit" BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Winter 2014 | Vol. 47 No. 4 43 train robber Bill Miner and without Spencer's portrait, Miner may never have gained such notoriety in his lifetime or maintained such legendary status. Spencer's brush with fame was part of an extraordinary life, a life that was consistent with the forces shaping Okanagan settler society where Mary Spencer is an archetype: a woman of faith and Baptist evangelism, a temperance pioneer, an orchardist, and an artist. In A Steady Lens, author Sherril Foster provides well-documented layers of context for the life and careers of a woman whose photographic imprint unapologetically states: "Miss M. Spencer, Kamloops, B.C." Foster connects Spencer to varied and complex themes: family loyalty and economic interdependence, the emergence of women in education and photography, the influence of women's organizations, Baptist church community and emerging congregations, interior climate and tuberculosis treatment, orcharding in the Okanagan, photographic trends and technology, and — Spencer's final artistic outlet — the art of painting on china. Popular studies of early BC photographers are few. However as well as being a welcome contribution to photographic history, A Steady Lens is primarily a work of popular biography. Sherril Foster's admiration for her subject is clear. She delves deeply into primary and secondary sources, crafting a convincing version of events while exploring engaging possibilities, probabilities and certainties concerning this modest woman. Foster succeeds in revealing Spencer's "true story." She "had entered the teaching profession when it was just beginning to be acceptable for women to do so; she practiced photography when it was still mainly a man's occupation; she had run her own photography business successfully in a new town, far from her Ontario roots; and she and her sister had spent their later years as independent fruit ranchers in the Okanagan Valley." Foster's work reminds readers that the authentic story of Mary Spencer is more compelling than the myths surrounding her, more compelling even than the character based on Spencer who was cast absurdly as Bill Miner's lover in Philip Borsos' film The Grey Fox. A Steady Lens would benefit from more generous treatment of Spencer's photographs and more context for the photographs as historical documents. Mary Spencer's photography is of high calibre and would be better represented in a larger format with higher quality reproductions. Group and landscape photographs printed over two-page spreads in this collection allow vital content to be swallowed by the trough of the book. In addition, Foster leaves the extent and scope of Mary Spencer's surviving photographic work unclear. Although she refers to "the many photographs left behind when the studio closed in 1909," she does not mention a Mary Spencer fonds. While seventy photographs in the book are credited to Kamloops Museum and Archives and to private collections, one wonders if there are more in existence? If so, discussion of the broader group would be of value. These points aside, A Steady Lens is a thoughtful and visually fascinating book of interest to a varied audience. Reviewer Don Bourdon is curator of the more than five million photographs, paintings, drawings, and prints in the collection of the Royal British Columbia Museum. Quarantined: Life and Death at William Head Station, 1872- 1959. by Peter Johnson. i(Surrey: Heritage House, [2014) $22.95. Long before it was a minimum-security prison, William Head welcomed new arrivals to Canada. As the only quarantine station on the Pacific coast, William Head was the place where people were checked for contagious diseases such as smallpox, cholera, typhus and polio. Its role was similar to that of Ellis Island in New York, and Grosse lie in Quebec. The idea was that if these diseases could be stopped at the port of entry, the people already here would be spared some misery. Located 18 kilometres southwest of Victoria on a headland in Parry Bay, William Head Quarantine Station was opened in 1893. It was the successor to one at Albert Head that never seemed able to handle the assignment and closed after only seven years of operation. Before that, sick arrivals were detained in Victoria or Esquimalt, which meant that disease — and fear — were able to spread through the communities with ease. In 1892, for example, a smallpox outbreak in Victoria prompted banks to begin to fumigate paper money. William Head was closed in the 1950s because more people were coming to Canada by air than by sea, so the station was increasingly irrelevant. As Johnson notes, "The Jet Age, the age of fast and affordable air travel, had begun in 44 BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Winter 2014 | Vol. 47 No. 4 earnest, and microbes and people had found a new way to fly." The history of William Head quarantine station has been a story long waiting to be told. In the interest of full disclosure, it's only fair to note that your reviewer had considered writing about it for a book of his own. Peter Johnson beat me to it, though — and he did a fine job with this book. It is a thorough account of the station, plus much more, including the way diseases were treated and detected before the station was opened, the hardships encountered in ocean travel, and glimpses of the people who operated and lived at William Head, including staff and their families. Quarantined is rich in detail about the station, and includes historical context that helps make the story relevant today, when its history is hidden behind prison fences. The book contains plenty of surprises, such as the transit of the 85,000 members of the Chinese Labour Corps through William Head as they travelled to combat in Europe during the First World War. This story is part of our local history, but could easily have been lost without Johnson's work. Quarantined is well illustrated with images of the station and its people. And yes, it includes maps as well. It is Johnson's third work on B.C. history. He also wrote Glyphs and Gallows: The Rock Art of Clo-oose, and the Wreck of the John Bright (1997), and Voyages of Hope: The Saga of the Brideships (2002). All three are strong historical works. Reviewer Dave Obee is editor-in- chief of the Victoria Times Colonist, and the author of Making The News: A Times Colonist Look at 150 Years of History (2008). Sensational Vancouver by Eve ILazarus. ^(Vancouver: Anvil Press) $24. Drugs, prostitution and gambling thrived in early Vancouver. So did independent women, artists and ghosts. All provide fascinating history for author Eve Lazarus as she explores Vancouver's "sensational" past. Prepare to glimpse the port city's underworld from the early 1900s to the post-war years along with biographical details of luminaries who have called Vancouver home. The well- researched text is richly illustrated by photographs. Lazarus also has a passion for house histories, as indicated in her previous publications and in her blog at evelazarus.com. Her expertise shows in the chapters on haunted houses and West Coast Modern homes. We get plenty of house histories elsewhere too, including the chapter, "Built on Rum." Bootleggers sold alcohol illegally during Prohibition from 1917 to 1920. They also smuggled rum south of the border during America's much longer dry years. Among those to profit were the Reifel brothers who built mansions named Rio Vista and Casa Mia, on Vancouver's affluent southwest side. Characters, such as police officer Joe Ricci, find their way in to these pages too. The book opens with a comic-style action-packed story in which Ricci and his partner Donald Sinclair raid an opium den in Chinatown in 1916. "Sinclair kept swinging the axe until he'd smashed through the door," Lazarus writes. "The two detectives then raced down the narrow passageway and up three flights of stairs, battering their way through two more doors of similar strength." More axes swing, an accidental fire occurs, and several near- death escapes follow. Ricci's daughter Louise provided much of the source material illuminating her father's work and their Italian-Canadian community on the city's east side. Other officers with stories to tell are Lurancy Harris and Minnie Millar, the first women to be hired by the Vancouver Police Department in 1912 and assigned to work with wayward women and children. Street photographer Foncie Pulice captured Harris and Millar walking along West Hastings in 1940s-style attire, complete with matching fedoras. Another valuable photograph reveals a floor tile design embedded with the name of Gastown brothel owner Marie Gomez. The brazen decor was situated at a building entrance on Alexandra Street. Yet another character garnering a full chapter is unorthodox journalist Ray Munroe. His work at the Vancouver Sun and Flash, a short-lived Toronto newspaper, contributed to the fall of corrupt police chief Walter Mulligan in 1956. The city's police museum served as an inspiration for several of these stories, most notably the unsolved Pauls murder of 1958. David and Helen Pauls and 11-year-old daughter Dorothy were found murdered in their south Vancouver home. The museum exhibits a showcase of grisly artifacts related to the unsolved case. Lazarus has added substantial research in her retelling of the Pauls story, including evidence suggesting a serial killer may have been the culprit. On the brighter side, legendary women are plentiful in Vancouver and include athlete and educator Valerie BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Winter 2014 | Vol. 47 No. 4 45 Jerome (1944 -), mountaineer Phyllis Munday (1894-1990), and aviator Tosca Trasolini (1911-1991). Entertainers range from singers (Bryan Adams) to punk rockers (Doug Bennett of Doug and the Slugs) and theatre owners (Ivan Ackery), all with interesting connections to the city. Also included in Sensational Vancouver is a tour map of Vancouver homes, brothels and buildings of interest, as well as an index and bibliography. Sensational Vancouver provides lively social history, appeals to a broad readership, and adds to the growing number of enlightening books about our city's past. Reviewer Janet Nicol is a freelance writer, editor, and film researcher with more than 250 articles appearing in over 30 magazines and journals to date. She is also a history teacher in a Vancouver high school and a much-followed blogger at janetnicol. wordpress.com. Save the Date British Columbia Historical Federation Annual Conference May 21st-23, 2015 in Quesnel, British Columbia Journey to the Cariboo: Dreams of gold first drew people from around the world to the remote region called the Cariboo. Although the means of travel evolved over time, the journey was often challenging. We will explore the stories of some who made the trip, whose lives were shaped by the environment and their neighbours and who, in turn, left their markon the region. Proposed activities include: Welcoming reception at the Quesnel Museum Full day trip to Barkerville with commentary en route & stops at Cottonwood House, Blessing's Grave, the ghost town of Stanley & the 1930s mining town of Wells. BC Historical Federation AGM and Awards Banquet Movie night at the Museum Authors' Book Fair Presentations and panel discussions Guided walking and cemetery tours Reconnecting with old friends and meeting new ones Watch for registration details on the Federation web site or in the next issue of British Columbia History. Registration is open to all, membership is not required. For Information or suggestions contact: Elizabeth Hunter, Quesnel & District Museum & Archives ehunter@quesnel.ca (250)992-9580 www.quesnelmuseum.ee or BCHF Conference Coordinator conference@bchistory.ca 46 BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Winter 2014 | Vol. 47 No. 4 New Books by Small Presses The Nauticapedia List of British Columbia's Floating Heritage. If you have never been to www.nauticapedia.ca, you must go. At this hugely popular nautical heritage site you will find a wealth of information — assembled by volunteers under the able hand of John MacFarlane — about Canada's Pacific nautical history and heritage and other topics of general maritime interest. At last count, the team had assembled over 46,000 vessel histories and 47,000 biographies. In 2013, the site hosted almost a million hits. After many years of urging, MacFarlane has turned his hand to produdng companion volumes, "intended to serve," he notes in the preface to Volume 1, "as a handy reference for ship watchers, historians, casual observers and armchair explorers. The pedigrees of each of the vessels in the list are snapshots of the nautical and industrial history of the province. They are exemplars of the designer's vision, the builder's craftsmanship, the activities of the owners who used them, their functions and the events to which they are tied." MacFarlane has expanded the definition of natutical heritage: "Most heritage festivals," he continues, "book on the subject, and public attention to possible restorations or preservation initiatives, tend to focus on wooden vessels. Our list does not discriminate between big beautiful classic yachts and the working ugly ducklings - as long as they are old enough and are tied to British Columbia. In fact plastic- hulled vessels appear here for the first time on a heritage vessel list." Volume 1: The Nauticapedia List of British Columbia's Floating Heritage, 1892-1959 (April 2014) $25. Volume 1 lists the histories of 1,170 of British Columbia ships and boats built before 1960 — that are still afloat — some over 120 years old! The most comprehensive collective history of ships afloat published in British Columbia and an ideal reference to information that can only otherwise be accessed by detailed research in museums and archives. Carry it in the boat, in the car or use as a handy reference at home. It also fills the gap left when the Canada List of Shipping ceased printing hard copies. Volume 2: The Nauticapedia List of British Columbia's Floating Heritage, 1960-1965 (July 2014) $25. Volume 2 lists the histories of 1,150 of British Columbia ships and boats built between 1960 and 1965 — that are still afloat. The history and pedigree of each vessel provides a fascinating snapshot of the nautical and industrial history of British Columbia. Volume 3: The Nauticapedia List of British Columbia's Floating Heritage, 1966-1970 (August 2014) $25. Volume 3 lists 1,200 of British Columbia ships and boats built between 1966 and 1970 — that are still afloat. About 85 of the vessels are illustrated with photographs. The ships are great representatives of working vessels, fishing vessels and yachts and provide the answer to the question "what's the story on that boat over there!" By John MacFarlane, See www.nauticapedia.ca for information on purchasing. BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Winter 2014 | Vol. 47 No. 4 47 Cabinets of Curiosities by Brenda L. Smith A little porcelain shoe holds clues to Brenda L. Smith's great-aunt Vera's life in Cloverdale before moving to the isolated Ocean Falls, BC. My mother offered me the little tissue- wrapped porcelain shoe in 2001. She said she had "always had it." Born in 1926, she received this gift from her aunt in celebration of Canada's 60th anniversary. The tiny paper folded inside the shoe says "To Dorothy, in remembrance of the Diamond Jubilee 1927, From Auntie Vera." The shoe bears the legend "Greetings from Vancouver, Can." Q/ji^ytyl^^. fofct^iyUi- ' uJ^U*.,. To me, growing up in the South Peace River Country of British Columbia in the 1950s, the cluster of my family living "at the coast" might have dwelt on the moon. Until 1951 there was no road between Dawson Creek and the rest of the province, and telephone calls were reserved for serious business and dire news. My mother's maternal Aunt Vera was a mirage, fondly mentioned and frozen in a few photographs. There were letters between Vera and my mother. But that was a form of adult conversation in a time when children were "seen and not heard." My family history research includes some data. Mabel Vera Pugh was born 24 February 1911 on the family farm near what became Ruthilda, Saskatchewan in 1912. The 1921 Census of Canada reports Left: the note. Above: The porcelain shoe with a dime for scale Bertram and Ada Pugh and their daughters Adeline and Vera living on a farm in Cloverdale, BC. She married James Reith Hadden 05 April 1930 in the isolated paper mill town of Ocean Falls, BC. She died in Vancouver on 02 August 1990, and was buried with her husband and son in Ocean View Cemetery, Burnaby. My mother Dorothy said of her extended family's arrival in the Peace River Country: "Pugh, Nock and Hadden homesteads were filed in 1929, at Pouce Coupe, because we moved up there in April 1930 to the Arras District. From Saskatchewan the Pughs moved to Lulu Island, I think, but I remember her [Adeline] talking about Cloverdale and Langley and I know she had friends at Steveston." By 1927, my mother's parents had lived in Ocean Falls for two years, and Vera seems to have been in Vancouver. The shoe with its note is a tiny contribution to my understanding of my elusive great aunt.* Do you have an object with a story on the shelves, walls or in the attic? Do you pass an object with a story in your daily travels? The story should capture a moment, signicant or personal, in BC's history. Send me 300 to 400 words together, with a high-resolution image of the object, telling me the story of the object. Email your story to: bcheditor@bchistory.ca, or mail it to: Editor, British Columbia History, PO Box 21187, Maple Ridge BC, V2X 1P7. 48 BRITISH COLUMBIA HISTORY | Winter 2014 | Vol. 47 No. 4 Awards and Scholarship Information for complete details go to http://bchistory.ca/awards/index.html W. KAYE LAMB Essay Scholarships Deadline: May 15 The British Columbia Historical Federation awards two scholarships annually for essays written by students at BC colleges or universities, on a topic relating to British Columbia history. One scholarship ($750) is for an essay written by a student in a first or second year course; the other ($1000) is for an essay written by a student in a third or fourth year course. To apply for the scholarship all candidates must submit (1) a letter of application and (2) a letter of recommendation from the professor for whom the essay was written. First and second year course essays should be 1,500-3,000 words; third and fourth year,l,500 to 5,000 words. By entering the scholarship competition the student gives the editor of British Columbia History the right to edit and publish the essay if it is deemed appropriate for the magazine. Applications with 3 printed copies of the essay should be submitted to: Marie Elliott, Chair BC Historical Federation Scholarship Committee, PO Box 5254, Station B, Victoria, BC V8R 6N4 Anne 6t Philip Yandle Best Article Award Deadline: To be eligible, the article must have appeared in the BCHF journal British Columbia History for that year A Certificate of merit and $250 will be awarded annually to the author of the article, published in British Columbia History, that best enhances knowledge of BC's history and provides reading enjoyment. Judging will be based on subject development, writing skill, freshness of material, and appeal to a general readership interested in all aspects of BC history. BC History Web Site Prize Deadline: December 31 The British Columbia Historical Federation and David Mattison are jointly sponsoring a yearly cash award of $250 to recognize Web sites that contribute to the understanding and appreciation of British Columbia's past. The award honours individual initiative in writing and presentation. Nominations for the BC History Web Site Prize must be made to the British Columbia Historical Federation, Web Site Prize Committee, prior to December 31st each year. Web site creators and authors may nominate their own sites. Prize rules and the online nomination form can be found on the British Columbia Historical Federation Web site: http://bchistory.ca/ awards/website/index.html Best Newsletter Award Deadline: March 1 Newsletters published by member societies are eligible to compete for an annual prize of $250. They will be judged for presentation and content that is interesting, newsy and informative. - Only member societies of the BCHF are eligible - Only one issue of a society's newsletter will be evaluated - Submit three printed copies of this best issue from the previous calendar year - BCHF reserves the right not to award a prize in a given year should applications not be of sufficient quality Submit three printed copies of a single newsletter issue to: BCHF Recognition Committee, PO Box 5254, Station B, Victoria, BC, Canada, V8R 6N4 Certificate of Merit Deadline: March 1 Group or individual who has made a significant contribution to the study, project, or promotion of British Columbia's history. Certificate of Recognition Deadline: March 1 Given to individual members or groups of members of BCHF Member Societies who have given exceptional service to their Organization or Community. Certificate of Appreciation Deadline: March 1 Individuals who have undertaken ongoing positions, tasks, or projects for BCHF. Nominations Any member of BCHF may nominate candidates for Certificates of Appreciation, Certificates of Merit or Certificates of Recognition. Nominations, supported by a letter explaining why the nominee is deserving of a certificate, should be submitted to the Chair of the Recognition Committee by March 1 of each year. The Lieutenant-Governor's Medal for Historical Writing Deadline: December 31 Each year, the British Columbia Historical Federation invites submissions for its Annual Historical Writing Competition to authors of BC history; and the winning author is awarded the Lieutenant- Governor's Medal for Historical Writing. Eligibility - To be eligible, a book must be about BC history and be published within the competition year - Non-fiction books representing any aspect of BC history are eligible. - Reprints or revisions of books are not eligible - Books may be submitted by authors or publishers - Deadline for submission is December 31 of the year in which the book was published Submission Requirements - Those wishing to enter books MUST obtain a copy of the entry rules from the entries chair at writing@bchistory.ca - Authors/Publishers are required to submit three copies of their book - Books are to be accompanied by a letter containing the following: 1. Title of the book submitted 2. Author's name and contact information 3. Publisher's name and contact information 4. Selling price - Books entered become property of BCHF - Judges' decisions are final and confidential - By submitting books for this competition, the authors agree that the BCHF may use their name(s) in press releases and in its publications William R. Morrison: Email: writing® bchistory.ca Judging Criteria Judges are looking for quality presentations and fresh material. Submissions will be evaluated in the following areas: - Scholarship: quality of research and documentation, comprehensiveness, objectivity and accuracy - Presentation: organization, clarity, illustrations and graphics - Accessibility: readability and audience appeal Publicity All winners will receive publicity and an invitation to the Award's Banquet at the Federation's annual conference in May following the year of publication. Lieutenant-Governor's Medal and Other Awards The BC Lieutenant-Governor's Medal for Historical Writing will be awarded together with $2500 to the author whose book makes the most significant contribution to the history of British Columbia. The 2nd and 3rd place winners will receive $1500 and $500 respectively. Certificates of Honourable Mention may be awarded to other books as recommended by the judges. Johnson Inc. Scholarship Deadline: September 15 Canadian residents completing high school and who are beginning post-secondary education. 100 scholarships of $1500 each for Canada, http://wwwl.johnson.ca/about- us/scholarships CLEAN UP YEAR a cartoon by J.B. Fitzmaurice from the April 25,1917 Vancouver Province depicts an Allied soldier sweeping German war aims off 's feature, "Fitz and the Great War" inside. piim fm^iH^m >t»J«J11g.i 11*\ij i»i*j 11 Discover BC's Past Humorous, tragic, personal and engaging stories in every issue. Subscribe Today! r^ **