February 3, 1921
What was happening a century ago this week from the front page of the Cowichan Leader.
February 3, 1921
Two deaths, one accidental the other mysterious, were in the news 100 years ago but the big story on the front page of The Leader was about coming to a decision about the War Memorial.
Today, there are cenotaphs in Cobble Hill, Duncan and Chemainus, and the lighthouse memorial on Mount Prevost. But this final selection and placement didn’t come about easily or without some hard feelings, mostly because the outlying communities wanted their own memorials rather than the one-size-fits-all solution of a single cenotaph in downtown Duncan as was originally proposed.
By February 1921, just over two years since Armistice, residents were being offered three alternative “schemes.” A new sub-committee composed of Duncan Mayor Pitt, the Rev. Arthur Bischlager, president of the Cowichan Great War Veterans Association, and Hugh Savage, president of the Duncan Board of Trade, had been formed and public input was being solicited via The Leader.
Three choices were being offered:
1) A cairn at the Duncan courthouse (Government and Station streets), to cost $1000.
2) A Memorial Cross in Duncan and a Cairn on top of Mount Prevost, to cost $2500 plus volunteer labour.
3) Erection of a Tuberculosis Ward at King’s Daughters’ Hospital, to cost $8000.
A ballot form would be printed in next week’s newspaper so that Valley residents could vote accordingly.
The resistance to date was that contributions were Valley-wide and the outlying communities had their own war dead to mourn. They felt that a single memorial in Duncan, designed as a Cross of Service as had been erected throughout the European battlefields, even though it would honour all of the Valley’s dead, wasn’t good enough. Ditto a second one on Mount Prevost. There was some confusion, too, as to cost, with estimates ranging from a low $1000 to $2250 for the Duncan version.
Those who voted for the expensive tuberculosis ward were also asked to state how much they were willing to subscribe.
Messrs. Pitt, Bischlager and Savage stressed that any memorial erected in Duncan would recognize all Valley servicemen (and one woman) who made the ultimate sacrifice for King and Country, 1914-18.
There was tragedy at Westholme where farmer and returned serviceman Frederick Veitch had been found dead from a premature explosion which occurred while he was blowing stumps to clear his land. He wasn’t found immediately; it was the neighbouring Richards family who, after feeding his animals because they were bawling, noticed his jersey and cap on a stump, and blasting powder and fuse on the ground. Upon investigation they were shocked to discover his mangled remains.
The middle-aged bachelor had been well liked and respected in the Chemainus area and his funeral was well attended.
At the Kuper (Penelakut) Island Industrial (residential) School, there had been a “distressing fatality,” the drowning of 20-year-old lay brother John Wilford Calnan, whose body had been retrieved from the school’s reservoir. Some of the Sisters had seen him set out for a walk about 8 o’clock in the morning. When he hadn’t returned by lunch a search was conducted and two of the students saw his cap floating on the water then his body in the centre of the reservoir which was eight feet deep.
Calnan was known to be a poor swimmer and to have been, in the words of The Leader, dogged by “ill luck.” Said to be of a sunny disposition, the recent immigrant from Ireland had broken his leg soon upon arrival. He’d gone to Kuper island to convalesce. He was interred at St. Ann’s, Tzouhalem.
The City of Duncan had been petitioned to provide all-night electricity by 218 residents of whom 147 were ratepayers. To determine whether there was sufficient demand for the extended service Council decided to hold a plebiscite, with a counter-offer of service until 1:00 a.m. A second petition, for regular service from the residents of the Gibbins-Menzies road area, was declined as being too expensive to install because of the distances involved.
Council had also had to deal with repairs to damages caused by a storm, five breaks in the lines having resulted from falling trees and broken lines. It was agreed that two new transformers were required. City Treasurer J. Greig promised a financial report of the electrical department for the next meeting.
Residents of Gibbins Road and immediate area had more on their plate than just wanting to have electricity, a public meeting having been held to discuss building a community hall. The cost of land and building were estimated to cost $875 for a structure 26x40 feet, with a kitchen and two dressing rooms. (Outdoor plumbing, of course.)
The Duncan Board of Trade raged against the state of the roads in the Cowichan Bay area. They were “a disgrace to the universe,” said Duncan Mayor Pitt. Col. F.T Oldham thought the same of the Old Victoria Road north of Chemainus.
Also discussed was a report of cod spawn having been scooped from the rocks on the shore of Sansum Narrows, which was illegal. Provincial electoral boundaries were a concern because Shawnigan Lake voters found themselves in something of a no-man’s-land between between Esquimalt and Cowichan.
And the Dominion Public Works Department, always a target, drew further criticism for its alleged apathy “towards long standing requests for needed improvements” in the Cowichan Valley. The B.C. Telelphone Co. was asked to explain why there were so many complaints of “lack of communication” in the southern reaches of the Valley, and—so apropos to today’s cluttered and eye-numbing southern approach to Duncan—advertising signs which “marr[ed] the beauty of the main tourist and traffic routes” outside cities.
Also of concern was the threat of bark-stripping of cascara or barberry bark for its medicinal uses; 100s of trees were said to have been maimed or killed in the Koksilah area, many of them on private property without the owners’ consent. No less than five tons had recently been shipped to England!
An exception had been that of a landowner who wanted to clear a swamp on his property for farming purposes. Two tons of the bark and trees were harvested rather than being burned.
There were the usual meetings and open houses on the front page but the last big news story concerned a court case in Nanaimo. A former employee had sued Hillcrest Lumber Co. for wrongful dismissal because he’d been laid him off without notice because of slow market conditions. It should come as no surprise that his case was dismissed with costs.
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