With Truth and Reconciliation has come a new awareness of and sensitivity to our colonial history. Everything about British Columbia’s formative years, once taken as gospel, is now under review.
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As some Chronicles readers may have discerned, aviation history is another passion of mine. What a treasure trove of fascinating stories is available in books, newspapers and online!
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Many are the pitfalls awaiting the unwary history student.
Even the experienced researcher can be lured off course by these sirens of our colourful past. To a writer of ‘popular’ history, these detours can be profitable as well as pleasant; ofttimes, research of one story can uncover another. And another and another.
Read MoreWell, we finally did it, a little bit late but better than not at all. For two weeks we’d tried to make it down to Saanich to mark the 80th anniversary of the murder of 15-year-old Molly Justice.
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By the time I was in my 20’s I was deep into writing about British Columbia and Canadian history, including, of course, stories about the RCN.
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Chronicles readers have a chance to save some local heritage, downtown Duncan’s venerable E&N Railway (our Cowichan Valley Museum) as explained in this press release by the Island Corridor Foundation, the building’s owners:
The Cowichan Valley Museum and Archives Needs Your Help!
There’s no getting around it: people and their actions—the good, the bad and the ugly—are fascinating. And the treasure trove of documented history available even to casual researchers is beyond calculation. I was reminded of this recently while reorganizing my library: a story I’d researched way back when I was writing weekly for the Victoria Colonist. It’s a sad tale, one so unlikely that I defy any fiction writer to make it up.
Read MoreIt was in the news earlier this month that a Gabriola Island man had lost his great-uncle’s ‘Dead Man’s Penny’. This First World War memorial plaque was made from bronze and became popularly known as the ‘Dead Man’s Penny’ among front-line troops. It was also known as the ‘Death Penny,’ ‘Death Plaque’ and ‘Widow’s Penny’ even though it’s 120 millimetres in diameter.
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In last week’s Chronicle we saw how Frank Hulbert aka Frank Pepler appears to have gotten away with murdering 15-year-old Molly Justice in 1943. He ended his life as a recluse, living in a converted bus. According to his obituary he died “peacefully,” 53 years later.
Read MoreIn place of an editorial this week, here are some of the many comments I’ve received over the years in response to my writings about Molly Justice, the subject of today’s Chronicle. I’ve attached my answers where I think they bear repeating.
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My Aunt Ada’s best friend, she’d lived one house down and across the road from our home on Brett Avenue, just east of Swan Lake, in Saanich. Ada and Uncle Cec lived next door to us; Ada was expecting when Molly Justice died and named her daughter, my cousin Molly, for her.
Read MoreAn interesting WANTED ad in last week’s Citizen caught my eye: “In the 1950s float planes replaced the steamships as the preferred mode of travel on the West Coast.
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To begin a brand-new 2023, let's take a walk on the lighter side, with a chuckle or two from my archives. We have all year to get back to the darker side of our history...
Read MoreThanks to the wonderful voice(s) of the late ‘Fireside’ Alan Maitland, The Shepherd, the story of a British Vampire jet fighter pilot flying home from Germany on Christmas Eve, 1957, is, in my humble opinion, the finest half-hour radio drama of all time.
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As I noted in a recent editorial, 147 years later treasure hunters think they’ve found the wreckage of the SS. Pacific which foundered off Cape Flattery in 1875.
Read MoreEveryone knows about the murals of Chemainus; they are, after all, internationally famous. A new project on the local scene was recently announced, the Que’utsun Festival of Murals…
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We’ve seen how, just after midnight of Christmas Day, 1890, David Fee Jr. was gunned down on a city street as he and friend Frank Partridge were returning to a Christmas celebration after attending midnight mass.
Read MoreBlack Diamond mines is a historic site where 5 different communities developed during the coal mining era of 1860-1906. What we have left are the mines; we give tours, a cemetery, and a story that continues to be told.
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It all began innocently earlier that evening with a masquerade party in the Philharmonic Hall on Fort Street. Among the celebrants were David Fee and Frank Partridge. Resplendent in their white costumes with red braid, they’d slipped away from the party to attend midnight mass in St. Andrew’s Cathedral.
Read MoreNurturing and conserving history, as is the case of almost everything else in life, requires effort, enthusiasm—and money.
All of our provincial museums, historic attractions—even those that enjoy the rare luxury of various degrees of public funding—rely upon cores of dedicated volunteers. The Cowichan Valley is no exception.
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