Vancouver Voyager: 1938

These apartment buildings on Victoria Drive were built in 1923.

During the 1930s and 1940s fogs were more thicker and frequent in Vancouver.

On January 12, 1938 "The Poet Laureate of the Deaf" Anne Charlotte Dalton, passed away in Vancouver. Dalton had come to Vancouver from her home in Huddersfield, England with her husband, Willie Dalton. Charlotte became the president of the Vancouver Poetry Club and the Dalton home was a place for writers and poets to meet.

Anne Dalton had been left partially deaf from a childhood illness, hence her title. Her books include The Marriage of Music; Flame and Adventure and Lillies and Leopards. In 1935 she was made a Member, Order of the British Empire and at that time she was the only woman poet to have been so honored.

On January 28, 1938 broadcast Bill Phillips was born and on February 12 businessman Nelson Skalbania was born.

Strange events occurred on February 19 of that year. A large bang woke thousands of Vancouverites from their slumber but no cause was ever found for the noise.

Carlisle Street which is near Renfrew and Hastings Streets was named on March 10, 1938. It was named for retired fire chief, J.H. Carlisle but the strange thing about Carlisle Street is that it is one of the few streets in Vancouver that has no addresses. It has only the back of buildings from adjacent streets.

This charming home on Victoria Drive was built in 1910.

On April 17 the demolition of the English Bay pier was completed.

The Sunday after Easter, April 18, 1938, the St. James Anglican Church on the corner of Gore and Cordova Streets was consecrated. (This is a gorgeous church, an architectural wonder and I know I have written on it before but I can't find the entry! I have close to three hundred entries on here now!)

May 12, 1938 Juvenile court judge Helen Gregory MacGill became the first woman to receive an honory LL.D from UBC. She was also the first woman judge in BC and I have written on her before! This time I did find the entry.

On June 12 a Sun columnist by the name of Bob (Robert Errol) Bouchette died. Bouchette had aggressively gone after the 1930s establishment to improve the condition of the impoverished. Bouchette had become a victim of his own depression and drowned himself in the waters off Second Beach.

Many of my readers will remember the Stanley Cup riots of 2011 when citizens destroyed a lot of the downtown core. But riots are nothing new to Vancouver. February 19, 1938 has become known as our Bloody Sunday. For six weeks 700 unemployed workers had been occupying the Post Office (now that building is Sinclair Centre). These men, led by Steve Brodie, were demanding federal relief. As can happen with these demonstrations that start out peacefully the movement got out of hand. Over 5,000 demonstrators rioted and caused considerable damage.

The police were brought in and using clubs and tear gas ousted the invaders. 39 people were injured and 22 were arrested. Demonstrators also occupied the Art Gallery and the Hotel Georgia when they protested BC's decision to stop relief payments.

Here is a reversal of the racism we hear so much about. There was a restaurant at 123B East Pender called C.K. Chop Suey that made the news on August 17, 1938 because they defied a civil license cancellation order. The reason for the cancellation was that the restaurant employed two white waitresses. Charlie Ting, the owner, informed the officials that the waitresses had already been employed there when Ting took over the restaurant in May. Ting was unaware of an agreement between then Vancouver mayor George Miller and Chinatown restaurants not to employ white help.