Fantastic Prosperity and Destitution

Man and two bear cubs, Kitsilano, 1911.

Buffalo in Stanley Park, 1939

A Monday in Vancouver, 1940

Traffic at Robson and Hornby 1907

The girls had their skirts shortened, stockings rolled down and the long tresses were cut short. The boys grew sideburns, wore turtle-neck sweaters and pants 22 inches around the cuffs. Returning veterans of a five-year war were now adults and going back to school. People danced the Charleston, drank bathtub gin and read The Sheik.

The citizens of Vancouver subscribed $15 million to the final Victory Loan, ready to "bring the boys home" and some wondered where the world was headed. The world had finished World War I, the war to end all wars and it was now a time of healing. Of change and progress and celebration. It was the start of a spectacular decade - the 1920's in Vancouver.

Second Beach, 1940

Kits Beach, 1946

Harry Houdini hanging upside down from the Vancouver Sun building, 1923

Kits Beach 1920

The soldiers came home. There was a plan by the government to settle the men on farms but the returning heroes had another plans. They were exposed to places like Paris and the farm life wasn't what they wanted. Many settled in Vancouver, which created other problems.

Vancouver didn't get a lot of help from senior governments and were suddenly dealing with an influx of people. In 1920, there were almost 10,000 people without jobs - 3500 more in the Chinese community. The unemployed held mass meetings, retail stores reported a "buying strike" and married civic employees were getting two days' work a week. This was the "starvation amid plenty" that U.S. President Roosevelt dramatized in the 1930's.

Life got a bit better by the winter of 1925. 1800 men were on relief, receiving 25 cents a day for meals and the same for a bed. 

Logging English Bay in 1890.

Autumn in Stanley Park in the 1890's

Waiting for a streetcar in Mount Pleasant, 1908.

Three room stump house where Queen Elizabeth Park is today. 1910

There was also prosperity. Vancouver shared in the Wall Street frenzy and fortunes were made on the stock market. The province's basic industries - mining, fishing, lumbering - were all bringing in large amounts of money and Vancouver shared in the wealth. Politicians worked with large financial interests to create wealth and almost everyone got some of it. Even if the wealth was unequally and sometimes illegitimately shared.

Some of this prosperity came from rum-running to the States via Ensenada, Mexico. Business and crime were allied in those cases and some Vancouverites gained their wealth by cooperating with smugglers.

This illogical discrepancy between the fantastic prosperity and the never-quite-overcome destitution kept gnawing at the city's subconscious. I think it still does today.

In 1890, this man is leaning on a tree in Stanley Park. The cedar tree has a 50 foot circumference. 

Vancouver from the air, 1932

Foggy morning on Granville Street, 1908.

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

The old pictures are from my mother's friend, Wes. Thank you.

I hope you find the beauty around you.

Karen Magill

Hi Ho! Off to War We Go!

This Queen Anne style home was built in 1907 for Dr. Thomas Jeffs and Minnie Jeffs. The Jeffs came from Ontario to Vancouver in 1890.

When World War I was declared, Vancouver and the rest of the province were alarmed with the presence of the German cruisers Leipzig and Nuremberg off the coast. Bank gold reserves were sent to Seattle and to Winnipeg and arrangements were made to buy all stocks of currency if the city was raided. Armed protection was demanded for the harbour, which was eventually made a closed port. Small coast defence guns were mounted on concrete emplacements at Siwash Rock in Stanley Park.

August 8, 1914, the BC militia was placed on active service - two days after the rest of Canada. Vancouver's first contribution to the war effort was a detachment of 350 men sent to guard the port of Prince Rupert.

Local units were held under arms until September 12, when British naval forces arrived in the North Pacific. The emergency was over.

Dr. Jeffs was a physician and coroner who also served as an alderman in 1906 and the police commissioner in 1907. The Grandview neighbourhood features many houses like this but this one is unique because the turret is on the inside of the lot rather than on the corner. This allows for a spectacular view of the city, mountains and harbour.

Recruiting for the 1st Contingent, Canadian Expeditionary Force continued during this time. In 10 days, Vancouver contributed its full share. British Columbia had more officers on the rolls than any other province and more men than any other military districts except the 2nd Divisional Area (central Ontario) and MD No. 10 (Manitoba and Saskatchewan combined). Throughout the war, BC contributed more volunteers in proportion to its population than any other province.

The first detachment, 75 British reservists, left Vancouver on August 19 for active service. Three days later 46 officers and 1022 men left in two special trains. There were 25 officers and 516 men from the Seaforths, 14 officers and 350 men from the Fusiliers, two officers and 50 men from the 18th Field Ambulance, one officer and six men from the Corps of Guides. August 26, 20 officers and 350 men from the 6th Regiment, DCOR and a detachment of the 6th Field Company of the Engineers left with a large number of Victoria volunteers.

This house was divided into suites as early as 1922 - a year before Thomas Jeffs died - and the construction of larger homes was occurring in Shaughnessy. 

These detachments included the bulk of the peacetime militiamen and almost all the militia officers. What remained was a recruiting cadre who were funnelling volunteers into the CEF (Canadian Expeditionary Force) where they were trained and assigned to battalions. Little concern was made when organizing these groups as to where the men were originally from.

In the 1st Contingent, most of the Vancouver men found themselves in either the 7th Battalion, commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Hart-McHarg with Major Victor W. Odlum second-in-command, or the 16th Battalion commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel R. G. Edwards Leckie. 

The restoration of the exterior as well as the development of the townhouses, was completed in 2013.

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 Germans are Coming!

Last week, I told you about the American influence and immigration to Vancouver. Today, I want to remark about the German influence.

German settlers were among the first flood of immigrants to British Columbia in 1857. A variety of people came mainly from southwestern Germany. Shopkeepers, merchants, skilled artisians and craftspeople left their homes and ventured to this new land and brought with them much needed skills and trades.

These immigrants became prominent in Vancouver's social and political life. German clubs soon sprang up, the members preserving their heritage, language, music and cultural traditions.

There were a significant number of German immigrants during the early 20th century. Many became part of local society by marrying into the "old families". German investment bankers, noblemen, barons and counts - they all entertained lavishly. It was an era that came to an end due to the economic crisis prior to World War I.

World War I turned the Germans from much loved, revered people to vilified enemies overnight. German-Canadians were hesitant to speak their native tongue in public; German language church services were stopped and the federal government stopped all German newspapers. A census in 1921, after the war, showed a decline in British Columbia of nearly 40 percent of people declaring German origin and they spoke English in public.

But in World War II, attitudes towards Germans were less hostile. However, all Germans entering the country had to register as enemy aliens. Most of those interned at the outbreak of the war were released in 1941 as harmless. This time there were no bitter ethnic tensions and, as early as 1947, Germans were again admitted as immigrants, initially as "displaced persons" who fled their homes in Eastern Germany.

Around 300,000 German immigrants arrived in the province between 1947 and 1967. Once again, many were tradespeople with good educations and a reasonable command of the English language. They easily merged into our society and became British Columbia's second largest ethnic group next to the British. These immigrants were successful in business, professions and trades, they persevered and rarely suffered failure.

In the post-war era, many German-Canadians settled along Vancouver's Fraser Street and in the West End. There they opened small businesses and ethnic restaurants along Robson Street. In fact, Robson Street was sometimes referred to as "Robsonstrasse".

I am referring once again to the book The Greater Vancouver Book, An Urban Encylopaedia and this time the article is entitled Germans and was written by Sylvia Reinthal.

I hope you find the beauty around you.