Vancouver Voyager: 1937

Ladner farmers,Chung Chuck and Mah Lai had appealed a provincial law that regulated the marketing of tree fruits and vegetables that had the effect (intended) of stifling Chinese farmers. In January 1937 the Privy Council ruled the laws invalid.

Alan Young who was best known for co-starring with a horse in the television show, Mr. Ed, began at CJOR Vancouver. He was the assistant for program director Dick Diespecker. For the three years that Young was employed there he fulfilled a variety of duties from typing extra copies of the drama scripts, to sweeping sometimes, to helping with news broadcasts and scripting and starring in a weekly show, Signal Carnival. He started in 1937.

In 1911 Eudora Jane Lochead had opened the Hastings Grove Store on Curtis in Burnaby. It had a rooming house with 20 rooms above and a dining room which sat 60 boarders. (To handle the overflow there were tents in the yard.) In 1913 she opened her second store at Sperling and Hastings. Lochead was also a poet, her best known work Would Life Be Worth Living. On February 2, 1937 this pioneer store owner and poet died in North Vancouver.

Jack Blaney who happened to be the president of Simon Fraser University from 1997 to 2000 and now senior fellow at the Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue in downtown Vancouver was born in Vancouver on February 24, 1937.

On March 5 a story in the Province reported that traces of hemp were found in a dead man's stomach. It was the first mention of 'marihuana' in a Vancouver paper.

On March 22 there was fire at 125 West Pender Street - the offices of the Vancouver Sun and the building suffered more than $200,000 worth of damage. The paper moved across the street into the Bekins Building which they bought on May 18. They never missed an issue and today we know that building as the Old Sun Tower.

Helena Gutteridge of the CCF became the first woman to ever be elected to the Vancouver City Council. Gutteridge was born in London, England around 1880 and came to Vancouver in 1911. She then organized the BC Women's Suffrage League and fought for the right for women to vote.

On March 30, 1937 Robert 'Red' Robinson was born in Comox. Robinson started broadcasting at CJOR at the ripe old age of 17. On November 12, 1954 he played music that no one had ever head before- Rock and Roll as well as Rhythm and Blues. In a year he had 54% of the audience and to this day he is still rockin'.

When construction began on the Lion's Gate Bridge on March 31, it was to be the longest suspension bridge in the British Empire at that time. More than 300 men were used in the construction and the bridge was built to give better access to the British Properties.

On May 12 a Coronation Day ceremony was held in Stanley Park to honor the accession to the throne of George VI and Queen Elizabeth. It was that day that Alderman Jonathon Rogers planted the King George VI oak in Stanley Park.