Challenges of Change

June 28, 1929. The building of the Female Chronic Building. Photo by the Dominion Photo Co.

Raised beds at Essondale Botanical Garden. Photo taken sometime between 1911 and 1916.

August 10, 1925. Opening of the Essondale Power House.

1914 photo of the tree farm at Essondale. 

All four photos from the City of Vancouver Archives

In 1974, Riverview was officially affiliated with the University of British Columbia - UBC - and its status as a teaching hospital was formalized. In the following decades, the hospital provided university and college students with valuable training and experience. Many of the psychiatrists trained at Riverview went on to hold university positions. Through this affiliation, the growth of research at the hospital was encouraged.

Mental health services in the community was growing since 1964 and by 1974, an active partnership between the community and Riverview was established. Both shared the responsibility for delivering much needed services.

The Greater Mental Health Service ran 30 mental health centres and 9 Community Care Teams at that time. Across the province, outpatient programs at these centres served more than 13,000 people and the Community Care teams provided more intensive treatment to 1,900 patients. Three hundred boarding homes provided respite to 1,700 people.

Several psychiatrists had joint appointments at the clinics and the hospital, thus encouraging the links between Riverview and the community. General hospitals in BC began to open in-patient psychiatric wards.

By 1976, The Leader was a monthly publication featuring activity schedules, listing of church services, upcoming movies, limericks, poems, and news of retiring staff. There was also news from the wards including this little tidbit from February 1976.

On Tuesday morning, December 23, 1975, patient L.G. (D3) playing cribbage with nurse’s aide, Mrs. Ida Meyes, got a perfect twenty-nine cribbage hand. His only comment was one of stunned silence.” 

What’s in a Volunteer? 

“A new nurse asked a volunteer, “What do you do?” the volunteer turned to a patient and asked, “What do I do?” The patient replied, “Oh, she comes every week and makes life worthwhile for a short time.” 

From the June 1976 Little Leader

The move was on to integrate patients into society and this presented challenges for Riverview. By the late 1970's, the system of setting up boarding homes to house the patients had evident problems.

“Many patients who were moved to the community had spent many years here. There was a belief at the time that these poor people were being locked up in this place—we should send them back to the community, put them in a group home and they’ll be okay. It was okay for some people, probably a minority. Many needed much more. There should have been more psycho-social support for these people in the community. That part was missing.”

John Higenbottam
Vice-President, Clinical Services, 1980-1992

Thanks to the PDF, Riverview, A Legacy of Care and Compassion for the above information.

I hope you find the beauty around you.

Karen Magill

Improvements

By the fall of 1915, the optimism of Vancouverites was plainly visible. The University of BC, under President F.F. Wesbrook, opened. The buildings in Point Grey wouldn't be finished until after the war so the students were taught in shacks and tents on the General Hospital grounds. And the official student gowns were piped with khaki cord to mark its wartime birth. Many students left classes soon after enrolment to enlist in the Western Universities Battalion for overseas service. But UBC was started!

That same September, the city got its first major war contract. It was a $2 million order for shell casings and it was split between Wallace Shipyards and North Shore Iron Works.

The Admirality released the old Empress of Japan to take up its trans-Pacific service again. In November, the first Canadian Northern (later known as the Canadian National) train left the city depot on Main Street. The Great Northern railroad was building a depot and the CPR trains had been running to Penticton on the Kettle Valley line since June 1.

At the end of the year, the Board of Trade called for conservation of resources, an end to monopoly control in industry, but also reported that business was sound, construction dead, and trade picking up.

The upsurge continued through 1916. The provincial government, under W. J. Bowser of Vancouver, provided laws and funds to aid shipbuilding, mining, farmers and seaport - all of which helped Vancouver. 

Prices were rising steadily. Though there was little or no increase in wages, everybody was back at work. The fish pack was fair, the lumber mills working to capacity, no miners on skid road. 

City building rose to $2.4 million from $1.5 million in 2015. However, it was almost all large industrial construction; permits for the year dropped from 612 to 434. 

Shipping was picking up. Large consignments of munitions and other war materials were shipped to embattled Russia via Vladivostok. This trade vanished with the outbreak of the revolution in 1917 and for years immense dumps of machinery and steel sat rusting at the city's outskirts.

Thanks to the book, Vancouver, From Milltown to Metropolis by Alan Morley for the above information.

I hope you find the beauty around you.

Karen Magill

The Lady Retires

June Roper's students continued to impress those who were informed concerning dancing and her pupils found work in a variety of productions. However, her life wasn't all work. In 1940, she became engaged to a prominent Vancouver businessman, Duncan Crux. She was thirty-three years old and decided to give up her career for marriage. She began to make a practical transition from her intense programme of teaching and productions.

Dorothy Wilson, from Victoria, agreed to take over the B.C. School of Dancing in 1940. Wilson had toured Europe extensively as a teacher of ballet. Dorothy agreed to begin her tenure in the spring. June continued to coach her special students and collaborated with Wilson on the Stars of Tomorrow revue for that year.

Wilson brought in Princess Sylvia Arfa, a Cecchetti disciple and daughter of the Persian Ambassador to the Russian Imperial Court to be her partner.

Following her marriage in 194, June gradually loosened her ties to the school. And article in the 1945 issue of Dance Magazine, written by Montreal dance writer, Francis Coleman, recognized June's contribution to the dance world, calling her a "ballet starmaker". The following year, June was one of the founding members of the Vancouver Ballet Society. After a time, June made her home in Palm Springs, California though she did maintain an apartment in Vancouver for some years.

June's first born daughter, Elizabeth, became an expert ballet teacher and used many of June's training techniques in her studios in Santa Cruz, California and West Vancouver, B.C. as well as Scottsdale, Arizona. Lauren, June's second daughter is a psychotherapist in Santa Cruz, California.

Leland Windreich, the author of the book June Roper, Ballet Starmaker, where I am getting my information, spoke with June Roper in the late 1970s when she came to Vancouver. Windreich attended a reception at her apartment where former students of June's were in attendance. They graciously supplied Windreich with some of the information he used for the book.

In 1978, the Dance in Canada Association honoured June at it's annual meeting at the University of British Columbia. She was recognized for her outstanding role as a pioneer in the development of ballet in Canada. 

June was plagued by bad health in her final years. She had Alzheimer's disease and died on November 21, 1991. Her legacy will live on forever - the dancers she trained have gone on to influence others and the stars she trained will remain in the hearts of dance followers forever.

 This photo is of June Roper - now Mrs. A.G. Duncan Crux, with a baby on her lap. Taken in August of 1942. I got it from the City of Vancouver archives 

I took this photo of a photo of June Roper when I toured the Orpheum theatre.

Another photo of a photo from the Orpheum theatre. This one of June Roper's dancers.

I hope you enjoyed my look at this fabulous woman. One thing about writing this blog that I love is some of the people I get to 'meet'.

I hope you find the beauty around you.