January 6, 1921
What was happening a century ago this week from the front page of the Cowichan Leader.
January 6, 1921
In that long-ago age before COVID-19, when friends could safely get together to greet the New Year, they did just that. To celebrate New Year 1921, according to The Leader headline, the Duncan Volunteer Fire Brigade and 300 “friends” ushered out the old year and welcomed the new with “the noisy clarion of cow bells, the throwing of coloured serpentines and the singing of Auld Lang Syne”.
Everyone present, it was reported, was out to have a good time and their wish was certainly granted, the Opera Hall having been decorated for the occasion with coloured paper and green branches, while at one of the exits were hung a Roll of Honour, with the names of all the Volunteer Firemen who’d enlisted during the war, and a framed picture of former members of the Fire Brigade.
Robinson’s four-piece orchestra provided the music with the prize waltz proving the most popular and competitive. Apparently it was with some difficulty that the four judges settled upon Mrs. George Elliot and Harry Smith as the winners.
When the annual event was finally over, the 14-man Brigade had netted $45 for its funds.
The St. Peter’s Sewing Circle had held its own successful dance and bridge competition, a seemingly unlikely combination, in the St. John’s Hall; again, Robinson’s orchestra provided the music. Complete with a delicious supper, the affair netted even more than the Firemen—$75.
A more subdued event in the same hall was that of dance teacher Miss Monk who, with her students hosted 70 parents with games of every description then supper. Coloured lights and silver candlesticks were said to have added to the ambience. Younger children were sent home to bed at 10 o’clock so that parents and older siblings could dance in the new year.
It was one public affair after another, this one held by the matron, Mrs. Mathieson, RRC, and staff of King’s Daughters’ Hospital. The large men’s ward had been cleared of beds for card tables for games of bridge and 500, two smaller rooms being allocated to whist players.
Mrs. M.K. Macmillan won 1st Ladies, Dr. Popert, 1st Men’s, and the newspaper was prompted to note that “It is very seldom that prize winners receive such interesting and unique prizes. A great number of them were donated by the matron and were souvenirs picked up on the battlefields of Europe. Each prize had a history that would be worth hearing, and Mrs. Mathieson deserves great credit for giving away such valuable treasures, as all souvenirs always are.”
Dancing followed and the more than 100 people present contributed $75 to the hospital’s equipment fund.
A more private affair was the silver wedding of Mr. and Mrs. J.M. Campbell, Duncan. There were 41 guests including children and much of the evening was spent playing cards and talking about the “good old days”. They were married on Christmas Day, 1895, at St. Mary’s, Somenos. Also present was H.T. Castley, 87, with 20 of his grandchildren; he’d been at their wedding, too.
A review of December weather, courtesy of Brig,-Gen. C.W. Gartside, voluntary weather recorder, showed that the closing month of 1920 had averaged 40.8 degrees F, with rainfall of 7.76 inches on 27 days. Average rainfall for the entire year was 40.19 inches, 1.44 inches more than in 1919. It’s interesting to note, too, in an age when global warming is of growing concern, that the three rainiest months for 1920 were August, September and October, February having been the driest month of the year.
The employees of the Mayo Lumber Co. at Paldi wanted their own school so owner Mayo Singh donated them enough lumber to build a 20-foot by 40-foot school, the provincial government providing a teacher, desks, maps and other equipment. First teacher was a local lass, Miss Margaret Evans, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. D. Evans, Somenos.
There was talk, not for the first time, of starting a local tobacco growing industry, this time with the encouragement of Professor Lionel Stevenson of the Dominion Experimental Farm, Sidney. Local farmer H.E. Gough had sent him a sample of his own experiments in growing tobacco. Stevenson complimented him on his product and said that what was really necessary for tobacco to succeed in the Cowichan Valley was dependably favourable weather. But with good-quality plug tobacco selling for $2 per pound the incentive, he said, was there.
Three trustees of Duncan Consolidated School were about to retire and Chairman W. Dwyer was unsure whether he’d stand again for election. Three other trustees had a year more to serve.
North Cowichan Council held their first meeting ever at Chemainus but, even with an attempt to bus in members of the public, attendance was disappointing. Reeve Herd opened with the somewhat dismal news that the municipality’s expenses had exceeded its revenues by almost $8000 thanks to unpaid taxes in the same amount. At least tax collections were up over the previous year.
He also thought that Municipal roads were in good repair when compared to provincial and Duncan roads; maintenance in the Chemainus ward totalled $3186, $2334 in Quamichan and $3511 in Comiaken. Herd’s favourable comparison to other jurisdictions did little to satisfy councillors or ratepayers, he admitted.
They’d endured labour problems and mechanical breakdowns and it was becoming apparent, to Herd at least, that the day of property owners paying their taxes in part by working on public roads was coming to an end. The province had already found it preferable to hire workers. He didn’t think the Municipality needed the services of a professional engineer as all the surveying and laying out of roads had been done; they just needed gravelling and surfacing. Councillors, too, it seemed, were leaning towards hiring road workers.
In effect, they needed “a capable man” to manage them and an efficient form of accounting.
There was some muttering about the use of crushed rock rather than gravel for road fill as it cost much more even though it was more effective.
The never-ending Mainguy Island saga was both “iniquitous” and an “outrage,” he continued; from now on, if he had his way, anyone seeking road easements could pay all costs themselves.
Which brought them back to taxes. What to do? With the costs of road work and schools, to name just two, continually going up, they needed more revenue. But he empathized with farmers and residents who were struggling to make a living.
Clr. Rivett-Carnac concluded the meeting by piping up that he didn’t Chemainus residents received their share of benefits for their taxes of $7000.
Because of the holidays there was scant attendance at the regular meeting of the Duncan Board of Trade which briefly discussed banking hours, public works issues in Cobble Hill and Lake Cowichan, and the usual gripes over Ottawa’s delayed responses to regional issues.
Because meeting attendance was down generally, the BoT had lost $24 in rent money as it relied upon attendees to pay for the hall. Very little of consequence, it seems, was discussed and nothing resolved for this last meeting of 1920.
The big news story of the day was that of a daring rescue, January 20, 1920, of two shipwrecked seamen by Jimmy Night-tune (or Ni-ton) and his wife Margaret who were presented with “tokens of recognition” (bronze medals with blue ribbons) by the Royal Canadian Humane Society. They’d risked their own lives to save two men whose steam launch had exploded, throwing them into the frigid sea off Clo-oose on the west coast of Vancouver Island.
Tying a rope around themselves, the Ni-tons had waded out to a reef some distance from the shore. While others held the other end of the rope from the beach, they then swam to the aid of the floundering men who, by this time, were almost exhausted. Somehow they managed to take them in tow and back to the comparative refuge of the reef from which they had to pack them as they were too weak to make it shore on their own.
Jimmy Ni-ton was said to be “the best canoeman on the coast” but, as it happened, his canoeing skills were of little use to him on that momentous day in January. At the presentation in Duncan he modestly said he’d have done it for anyone—“white man, Indian, Chinaman or what”.
He was said to be the last surviving member of the Clo-oose band of which his father had been chief.
Have a question, comment or suggestion for TW? Use our Contact Page.