Showing 8347 results

Authority record

Bernard, Elaine

  • Person
  • 1951-

Elaine Bernard assembled the collection while researching The Long Distance Feeling: A History of the Telecommunications Worker's Union.

Cameron, Alexander MacDougall

  • Person

Alexander Cameron worked with the Pioneer Gold Mines of B.C. until 1939, when he was fired for participating illegally in strike action.

Crook, Rudolph

  • Person

Rudolph and Edith Crook were Canadians who served as Baptist medical missionaries in the Szechuan province of China between 1920 and 1950.

Read, Herbert

  • Person
  • 1893-1968

Sir Herbert Read has been described as an art critic, educationalist, poet and novelist. He held the chair of Fine Arts ant the University of Leeds and was editor of Burlington Magazine. He served as president of the Institute of Contemporary Arts and was knighted in 1953 for distinguished service in his field.

YWCA Metro Vancouver

  • Corporate body
  • 1897-

YWCA Metro Vancouver was founded in 1897 and incorporated as a society in 1905. It is a non-profit, membership- and volunteer-based charitable organization. Originally formed by members of two Vancouver charitable organizations, the Women’s Improvement League of St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church and the Anglican Girls’ Friendly Society, the organization’s initial mandate concerned providing relief work. However, the four women who established YWCA Metro Vancouver—Skinner, Banfield, Macaulay, and Southcott—quickly expanded the mandate to more fully support young women’s independence. The YWCA has always worked to fulfill its mandate through integrated services. Today, its mission is to advance gender equity.

YWCA Metro Vancouver is a local organization participating in the broader YWCA movement. Started in England in 1855, the YWCA movement includes all YWCA organizations. The YWCA movement operates at three levels: local, national, and world. As a local YWCA, YWCA Metro Vancouver is an independent entity, governed by its own Board of Directors following its own mission statement. Alongside other local Canadian YWCAs, YWCA Metro Vancouver is a member of the YWCA of Canada. Founded in 1893, the YWCA of Canada is a national YWCA that serves as coordinating body for all local YWCAs in Canada. Delegates from local YWCAs attend National Conventions every four years to elect the National Board of the YWCA of Canada and collaborate on policy and priorities. The YWCA of Canada has been a member of World YWCA since 1895. Founded in 1894, the World YWCA coordinates and connects national YWCAs globally. The YWCA of Canada elects Canadian delegates to attend the World YWCA Council every four years to determine policies and priorities for the World YWCA.

Although a member of the YWCA of Canada, YWCA Metro Vancouver is an autonomous entity, with organizational policy implemented by members via the elected Board of Directors. Elected annually from and by YWCA Metro Vancouver members, the Board of Directors is responsible for managing the affairs of the full organization, including policy- and priority-setting, strategic planning, budget management, and decision-making based on committee recommendations. The Board works with the Leadership Team, originally known as the Management Team, to accomplish this work. The Leadership Team is composed of key YWCA staff. The Board also recruits and employs the CEO, or the Executive Director before 1998, who acts as Head of Staff. The CEO partners with the Chair of the Board, called the President before 2002. YWCA Metro Vancouver staff members report to their supervisors who report to the CEO, committee members report to chair-people who report to the Chair of the Board, the CEO and Chair partner and report to the Board, and the Board is responsible to the membership.

YWCA Metro Vancouver has changed its priorities, policies, and name according to the identified needs of its membership. Founded as the Vancouver Young Women’s Christian Association, YWCA Metro Vancouver’s name has been through several iterations and meanings. One concerns the “C” present in “YWCA.” In 1965, the Vancouver YWCA brought forth a proposal to the YWCA of Canada for membership to be open to anyone regardless of religion. Four years later, this proposal was brought up by the Vancouver and Winnipeg YWCAs, and officially adopted. Although founded as a Christian organization, YWCA Metro Vancouver membership is now open to any who wish to join, regardless of gender or religion. YWCA Metro Vancouver identifies as a secular organization, but has kept the “C” in its name due to the influence of Christianity in its legacy. Additionally, in 2011 the organization changed its name to YWCA Metro Vancouver to “reflect [its] commitment serving communities throughout the region spanning Burnaby, Surrey, the Tri-cities, Maple Ridge, Langley/Aldergrove, Abbotsford, New Westminster, Richmond and North Vancouver” (“About the YWCA: Our Story”).

YWCA Metro Vancouver uses an integrated service model, considering the context of Vancouver and characteristics of the community served to inform its work. Early services included housing, an Employment Bureau, and Traveller’s Aid aimed at job-seeking young women new to Vancouver. Additional programs and services were influenced by priorities regularly identified by the organization. To provide these young women with social opportunities and improve their employment prospects, the YWCA began its fitness programs and adult education courses in the 1910s. Due to the outbreak and aftermath of World War I, in the 1920s YWCA provided counselling and sewing services for military hospitals, expanded its Health Education department, housed soldiers and their families, and assisted in resettling orphans, refugees, and soldiers’ families. The organization shifted its programming from a focus on Bible studies and church-going to personal and professional development programs and social and educational clubs. In response to the Great Depression in the 1930s, the YWCA focused its services towards providing affordable housing to homeless women and offering classes and training in marketable skills to assist women’s employability. Simultaneously, an emerging focus on international engagement, teenage programming, and leadership training in the 1930s led to Hi-Y programs for high schoolers and the founding in 1938 of the “Chinese Department” that would later become the Pender Y. A branch of the YWCA addressing Vancouver Chinatown’s community needs, Pender Y ran from 1944 to 1978. In the 1940s, the YWCA as a national movement focused on accommodating soldiers and their visiting relatives, as well as supporting women assuming additional responsibilities while male family members served overseas. After the war, the YWCA developed programs to advocate for women to keep their jobs and responsibilities when faced with the societal pressure to relinquish them. From the 1940s to 1960s, further developing YWCA programs and services were decentralized to branch YWCAs, including the West Vancouver Community Association and Vancouver East Community Y, among others. The YWCA responded to the Baby Boom of the 1950s by gearing its services to help mothers at every stage of motherhood. By the 1960s and 1970s, the YWCA identified priorities including leadership development, financial development, and social action. The organization became more vocal on Canadian and international social issues, prioritized transient youth and domestic abuse survivors, and expanded its employment guidance, counselling services, and mentorship programming. Munroe House, Canada’s first long-stay transition home for women and their children escaping abuse, opened in 1979. In the 1980s and 1990s, the YWCA identified childcare for teenage, working, and/or single mothers as an unfulfilled need and opened several childcare centres. Since the early 2000s, YWCA Metro Vancouver has focused on affordable housing, employment programs, ending gender-based violence, fitness and education, legal supports, and universal childcare. Several Vancouver-based community service organizations have found their beginnings as YWCA Metro Vancouver services before separating and becoming independent, including MOSAIC and Big Sisters.

YWCA Metro Vancouver continues to be an important and active part of its community.

References:
“About the YWCA: Our Story.” YWCA Metro Vancouver, 2023, https://ywcavan.org/our-story.

MacInnis, Grace

  • Person
  • 1905-1991

Grace MacInnis was the daughter of J.S. Woodsworth, co-founder of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation. Married to Angus MacInnis, she has enjoyed an active political career, both provincially and federally. She was party and caucus secretary until 1941. In 1958 MacInnis became provincial president of the CCF. In 1965, after her husband's death, she began a nine-year career as MP for Vancouver-Kingsway. Her interests included the status of women, poverty and housing. Two biographies,"Grace: The Life of Grace MacInnis" by Sunny P. Lewis and "Grace MacInnis: The Story of Love and Integrity" by Ann Farrell have been written about her.

Dalby, Simon

  • Person

Biographical information unavailable.

Klondike Sun

  • Corporate body
  • 1989-

Constituted under the Societies Act in 1989. The Klondike Sun records events and activities in Dawson City, Yukon, and the surrounding Klondike Region.

Shadbolt, Jack

  • Person
  • 1909-

Jack Shadbolt has developed an international reputation as a distinguished modern artist, lecturer, and writer. Throughout his career he has written extensively about art and the creative process. He was born in Shoeburyness, England, in 1909, and in 1912, emigrated with his family to Victoria.

In his youth, he spent long hours studying the collections of Northwest Coast First Nations Art in provincial museums and galleries. He met Emily Carr in 1930, and was deeply influenced by her work. At that time, he was already aware that he wanted to become an artist. Shadbolt attended Victoria College in 1926-1927 and entered the Provincial Normal School in Victoria in 1929. He began his career as a teacher in Duncan, and in 1931 moved to Vancouver where he taught at Kitsilano High School for several years.

During the thirties, Shadbolt began to articulate his artistic ideas that the development of a modern Northwest Coast indigenous art must be profoundly rooted in a sense of place. In this sense, Shadbolt felt modern artists could learn from First Nations traditions. During this time, his work reflected the influence of Surrealism, and much of his art documented the modern industrial landscape of Vancouver. In 1937, he studied in London, and then in Paris with Andre Lhote. In 1938, he began teaching at the Vancouver School of Art, and was the Head of Drawing and Painting Section until 1966.

In 1942, Shadbolt joined the army, and in 1944 was assigned to the War Artists Administration in London. After the war, in 1945, he married Doris Meisel Shadbolt, and returned to Vancouver. In 1948, he attended the Art Students' League in New York where he was influenced by the work of the Abstract Expressionists. In the same year he audited a course in the history of mythology at the New School for Social Research.

In the fifties, he exhibited frequently, and led the West Coast renaissance in painting. In 1966, after 35 years of teaching, he left the Vancouver School of Art to paint full time. After several trips to the Mediterranean, he introduced sharp, bright colour into his palette.

In the seventies, he extended his interest in native and primitive art and produced a series of fetish images and ritual transformation themes on the growth cycle of the butterfly. In 1975, he traveled to Iran, Afghanistan and India, which resulted in his large scale India Suite of twenty panels in serial form.

His art is widely represented in major public and corporate collections in Canada. He has exhibited his work in numerous solo exhibitions in major centres in North America and Europe. His work has also been included in many important group exhibitions in Canada, the United States, Mexico, Europe and Australia.

Shadbolt has been the recipient of many awards, including the Canadian Government Overseas Fellowship in 1956, the Canadian Guggenheim International Award in 1957, the Centennial Medal in 1967, the University of Alberta National Award for Painting in 1969, the Order of Canada in 1972, and the Ontario Society of Artists Award in 1981. As well, he has received three honorary Doctorate of Law degrees from the University of Victoria in 1973, Simon Fraser University in 1978, and The University of British Columbia in 1978.

Niven, Frederick John

  • Person
  • 1878-1944

Frederick Niven was born in Valparaiso, Chile, in 1878 but left for Scotland at the age of five. After studying painting, ill-health forced him to move in his late-teens to the drier climate of the Okanagan Valley of British Columbia to live with missionary friends of his mother. He worked at Hastings Saw Mill in 1900 before returning to Scotland, where he began to write. Returning to western Canada in 1911 after marrying Mary Pauline Thorne-Quelch, he wrote freelance and continued novel-writing until his death in 1944.

Dosanjh, Ujjal

  • Person
  • 1947-

Ujjal Dosanjh, born September 9, 1947 in the village of Dosanh Kalan, Jallandhar India, is a former Canadian Federal and Provincial politician. Spending his early years in India, he attended a small primary school established by his maternal grandfather, Moola Singh Bahowal. Both Bahowal and Dosanjah's father were heavily involved in Indian politics. The former prominently fought for India’s freedom from British rule; while the latter championed for positive change in the volatile post-war era. At the age of 17, Dosanjh immigrated to England to learn English. There he found work as an assistant editor for a Punjabi language newspaper but was unable to gain acceptance to a British university given their prerequisite requirements. Due to this setback, he decided to move on to Canada where his aunt had been living since 1954. Arriving in Vancouver in 1968, he was hired first as a cleaner for Burke Lumber before moving on to work the physically demanding green chain of their sawmill. At night he also attended classes at Vancouver Community College. The following year Dosanjh badly injured his back in an unfortunate incident at the sawmill. A spinal fusion was required to repair the damage leaving him unable to work labour intensive jobs. After a period of recovery, he dedicated himself to his studies; he enrolled as a full-time student at Langara College in 1971, then transferred to Simon Fraser University in 1972, and graduated with a BA in political science in August of 1973. The following month he began his law education at the University of British Columbia (UBC). As a student, he was highly involved in civil rights and local community issues. Causes he would continue to campaign for throughout his life. Dosanjh successfully completed his degree in 1976 at UBC, going on to establish a private practice in 1979, Dosanjh & Pirani, specializing in family and personal injury law. Through this period, he volunteered at local colleges and schools to teach English to new immigrants; and worked with the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association to co-found both the Labour Advocacy and Research Association and the Farm Workers Legal Information Service. These institutions would serve as the foundations for the creation of the Canadian Farm Workers’ Union.

Dosanjh has been a prominent and vocal advocate against violence and extremism. He has for many years spoken out against those who use these means to attempt to establish a Sikh homeland in India called Khalistan. This position has caused friction within the BC Punjabi community resulting in numerous serious threats by mail and in person. The most significant event happened on February 8, 1985 when he was violently assaulted outside of the Dosanjh & Pirani law office in south Vancouver. A masked man wielding an iron bar spiked with a metal bolt inflected serious injuries resulting in significant head wounds and a severely broken right hand.

The 1979 provincial election was Dosanjh’s introduction to British Columbia’s political landscape. Running as the New Democratic Party (NDP) candidate in the riding of Vancouver South, his campaign was ultimately unsuccessful. A second attempt in 1981 again failed. However, ten years later in the 1991 B.C. general election he was victorious in the newly formed riding of Vancouver-Kensington. His success coincided with the NDP, under leader Mike Harcourt, achieving the premiership. 1995 proved to be a breakthrough year for Dosanjh’s political career. First, he was elevated from a backbencher to the cabinet of the premier as Minister of Government Services and Minister Responsible for Sports, Multiculturalism, Human Rights, and Immigration. Then in August he was appointed Attorney General of BC. Under his tenure from 1995 to 2000, Dosanjh advocated for greater equality for gays and lesbians, combated violence against women, argued for restorative justice, and oversaw the armed confrontation between the aboriginal Secwepemc Nation and the RCMP in an incident known as the Gustafsen Lake Standoff. In the 1996 provincial election, re-election was won in Vancouver-Kensington and the NDP remained in control of the province’s politics.

Dosanjh continued to face opposition and receive threats from those advocating for the use of violence to pursue the Khalistan movement. This was again obvious when, as a member of the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia and the Attorney General in 1999, his constituency office was broken into and a burning Molotov cocktail was left on a table as a threat.

Also in 1999, sitting BC premier Glen Clark was ensnarled by accusations involving undue influence in the review of a neighbour’s casino licence application. Dosanjh, as Attorney General, was required to cooperate and assist the investigation, therefore privy to specialized knowledge. Clark was forced to resign and new NDP leadership elections were set for early 2000. A successful campaign was launched for the vacant position. Subsequently on Febuary 24, 2000, Ujjal Dosanjh was appointed Premier of B.C., the first Indo-Canadian to do so.

Premier until June 2001, he focused on balancing the provincial budget and advocating for social justice. However, the deeply unpopular position of the provincial NDP party, due to a series of political missteps, led to a sweeping rout in the general election of 2001. The BC Liberal party was resoundingly victorious leading to a return to private life practicing law with his two sons, Aseem and Pavel, at his new firm Dosanjh Woolley.

2004 saw a return to politics with a new political affiliation, the Liberal Party of Canada; and in a new capacity, the federal electoral district of Vancouver South. A winning campaign coincided with a Liberal federal victory, thus leading to his appointment as Minister of Health by Prime Minister Paul Martin. Dosanjh strongly supported Canada’s publicly funded health care, working to prevent the provinces from privatizing the system. He occupied the position from 2004 to 2006. The Liberal party was defeated in the 2006 federal election, however Dosanjh once again won his riding. He joined his party as the Official Opposition, serving as the critic for National Defence and served on the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development. Re-elected in the 2008 federal election he continued to be the Liberal’s critic for National Defence. A campaign for a fourth consecutive term was launch in 2011 but resulted in defeat and retirement from politics. Dosanjh returned to private life and continues to actively advocate against violence and extremism.

Brown, Audrey Alexandra, 1904-1998.

  • Person

Poet Audrey Alexandra Brown was born in Nanaimo, British Columbia in 1904. In 1948 Brown won the Lorne Pierce Medal for her contribution to Canadian literature. Brown also published "The Log of a Lame Duck" (1936), which is a journal that Brown kept while in hospital with rheumatic fever.

Banana, Anna

  • Person
  • 24 February 1940 – Present

Anna Banana was born on 24 February 1940 in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. She is an artist known for her participation in the Mail Art network, performance art, writing, and work as a small press publisher, producing the almost 50 year running Banana Rag, VILE magazine from 1974-1984, International Art Post, and various artistamp editions. She has lived in and operated out of Victoria, San Fransisco, Vancouver and the Sunshine coast. She has also toured internationally on a number of occasions, predominantly through Europe and North America. She herself considered her work to be “a costume and the creation of a character,” and called herself an “incurable collector.”

After graduating in 1957 from Victoria High School, she attended the University of British Columbia from 1958-1963 and graduated with an elementary academic teaching certificate. After this, she taught for five years, in public schools for two and then at the Vancouver New School for three. At Vancouver’s New School she was first called Anna Banana by students, and she noted that the name stuck after falling into a crate of bananas at a party. In the late 1960s she became disillusioned with her life as a wife, mother and teacher, and relocated to the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California for a period of 18 months, where she learned massage.

After her stint at Esalen, she moved back to Victoria, supporting herself through massage workshops and batik making. In August 1971 she “went bananas” and declared herself the Town Fool of Victoria, continuing to hold this post until 1972. During this period she would often go to schools with painted rocks and set up voluntary arts and crafts instruction for students, under the Anna Banana pseudonym. She would issue degrees in “Bananology” (i.e. the art of being bananas) to participants, and this continued for many years to come. During this period she wrote an article for Maclean’s magazine which describes her rejection of consumer culture in these years, living in a cabin with no running water for $35 a month, on an income of around $25 a week. She began to publish the Banana Rag newsletter in 1971 in order to contact, involve and inform the general public about her aims and activities in Victoria at the time. One of these reached some Vancouver based artists who had begun to correspond within the network, and Banana was quickly introduced to the International Mail Art Network by artist Gary Lee Nova (AKA Art Rat), beginning her decades long engagement with mail art. Her first requests were that mail artists send her banana related items, including images and general information – of which she collected more than 1200 over the course of her career. Networkers who provided these items were awarded a Masters Degree in Bananology and a note.

By August 1973 she had moved to San Francisco, landing a job at the SF Bay Guardian. In her time in San Fransisco she organized the first Banana Olympics in 1975, explored performance art alongside a number of Dadaist compatriots, and published VILE magazine in February 1974 in response to a comment made in FILE magazine saying that mail art was “Quik-Kopy Krap”. VILE would eventually have 7 editions, with Bill Gaglione, her partner at the time, publishing 3 of them, culminating in a special issue called About VILE in 1983. Anna and Bill Gaglione would go on to tour Europe with their “Futurist Sound” performances, from September to December 1978.

In the mid-1970’s, Anna began to create her own stamps, in response to a mail art invitation. When, in the 1980s, she wanted to begin monetizing her activities, she requested that networkers pay for her Banana Rag subscription in order to maintain contact with her. By 1986, she began to look to stamps as a way of increasing the income generated from her activities, producing multiple editions of various artistamps, into the mid-2000s, under the issuing authority of a fictitious “Bananaland”. While working in production department of Intermedia Press from 1983 to 1985, she learned full-colour printing, which she would go on to use to issue International Art Post, which ran from 1988 to 2011.

In 1981 she moved back to Vancouver, British Columbia, around the same time divorcing Bill Caglione (an event which she would call the “Banana Split”). In 1980 she held the 2nd Banana Olympics in Surrey, British Columbia, and in 1985 she legally changed her name to Anna Banana. This period stands out for her production of artistamps, although she remained an avid networker and performance artist. She curated performance art shows such as Artropolis, and engaged in performances such as“Wild Women” and “World Series”, as well as other performance art shows on tours through North America and Europe.

In the 1990s, she began the Special Research Insitute, where she performed goofy dada-esque research projects, such as “Proof Positive That Germany Is Going Bananas” (1993), “A Survey of Banana Culture in Victoria BC” and “But Is It Art?” (2011). She led the institute under the name Dr. Anna Freud Banana. In 2001, she began creating Artist Trading Cards, and would continue to trade these at various events throughout the 2000s.

Anna moved to the Sunshine Coast in British Columbia in 1995, where she currently lives.

Wong, Robert Shun

  • Person
  • 1917-1988

Robert Shun Wong was born in 1917 in Nanaimo, British Columbia, to WONG Fun Chee (father) and MAR Hong (mother). His sister, Jean, would become the first Chinese Canadian woman to receive the Order of Canada (as Jean Lumb in 1976).

From an early age, Wong showed a passion for flying; he would skip lunches at school to save money for flying lessons. At 17, he finished building his own CF-BAA and flew the single-seat, single-wing aircraft.

Wong completed high school at Vancouver Technical School in 1937 before the family moved to Toronto the following year. He pursued a Bachelor of Science degree in Maintenance Engineering at Parks Air College in St. Louis, Illinois. After graduating in 1940, he worked as a flight engineer for three years.

Holding licenses as a Maintenance Engineer, Private Pilot, and Airline Transport Pilot, Wong set off on establishing his own flying schools. He co-founded Wong's Flying School in 1945 and Central Airways Ltd. in 1946. Wong served as President and Manager of Central Airways from 1946 until his retirement in 1982 when the company was sold. By then, Central Airways had become the largest flying school in Canada, training over 8,000 pilots.

Wong was a member of OX5 Aviation Pioneers of America, Canadian Aviation Historical Society, Air Transport Association of Canada, and Rotary Club of Toronto. He was an active member of Forest Grove United Church, and fundraised for North York General Hospital and YMCA.

Wong married Eva Ping Fir LUM in 1944. The couple had two daughters: Roberta (Lau) and Evelyn. Robert Shun Wong passed away in Toronto in 1988. Eva Wong passed away in 2003.

Chow, Wayne Wing

  • Person
  • b. 1924

Wayne Wing CHOW was born in 1924 in Cumberland, BC to Der Shee (mother) and CHOW Foon Gar, owner of Chow Lee Company store in Cumberland. His older brothers, Park and Bill, both served in the Canadian Army in WWII; sister Mamie owned and operated Oriental Commerce in Windsor; and youngest brother, Jack, ran an insurance agency in Vancouver. Wayne was exempt from military service as a university student and due to being colour-blind.

Wayne moved to Victoria in 1938, attending school at North Ward and Victoria High. Because his parents were not city taxpayers, he was asked to leave Victoria High. His sister Mamie invited Wayne to live with her in Dauphin, Manitoba to continue his schooling and work at her husband’s diner called the Grange Cafe.

In 1950, Wayne graduated from the University of Manitoba with a B.Sc. Electrical Engineering. His university annual write-up commented on Wayne’s analytical mind, noting his favourite saying was “This can’t be right”.

It was rare for any Chinese to attend university at that time, so Wayne was considered a “catch” when introduced to Yvonne Wong of Elm Creek, Manitoba by her brother Jim (whom Wayne met in university). Wayne married Yvonne in 1951 and they raised five children: Gaylene, Lawrence, Douglas, Marla, and Warren.

Years later, Wayne remembered being bullied by the local Japanese children during the 1930s, when China was very weak. To ensure his sons could protect themselves, he enrolled them, ironically, in Japanese judo, as Chinese martial art classes were unavailable in the early 1970s.

After university, Wayne lived in Regina for five years while working for Saskatchewan Power. In 1956, he became a Distribution Engineer with B.C. Hydro in Victoria, until retirement in 1988. To provide his children a stable environment, Wayne declined promotions to other cities.

Wayne left the cooking to Yvonne, who used powdered skim milk to stretch the budget for feeding five children. Wayne’s “specialty” was steamed rice and Chinese sausage “lap cheong.” His grandchildren all knew that “Gong Gong loves his rice and Cantonese food.”

Family trips included annual vacations with brother Bill in Vancouver, as well as long road trips to Disneyland and Winnipeg.

Wayne was proud of his Chinese heritage and visited China several times. His first trip to China was in 1973 when the country was in the midst of the Cultural Revolution. He visited his ancestral village in 開平 Hoiping/Kaiping, 廣東 Guangdong Province.

Wayne went again in December 1983, at age 59, when he travelled with his son Douglas for a month, visiting Chinese scholars throughout the country whom he had once hosted in Canada. During this trip, he lived in a traditional courtyard in Beijing; wore a toque to bed in Wuhan where there was no heat in the winter; practiced taichi at 6AM in a Beijing park; and rode a bicycle to the Old Summer Palace in Beijing, unfortunately hitting a tree, resulting in a black eye and stitches.

Upon retiring, Wayne made more trips to China with his son Douglas and daughter-in-law Tong. On a trip in 2004, a funny incident occurred when the family squished six people into a taxi—including grandsons Andrew and Patrick—for a 10PM visit to the Shanghai Bund.

In retirement, Wayne also kept busy travelling with Yvonne, tending to his vegetable garden, and doing taxes with H&R Block for over 20 years. Being a disciplined engineer, Wayne had an established routine: daily walks until age 95, eating his apples, and gardening. Even at age 98 he did not wear glasses.

Ma, Wing Sang

  • Person
  • [1877]-1954

MA Wing Sang was born around 1877 in the district of 新寧 Sunning / Xinning (later known as 台山 Toisan / Taishan), 廣東 Guangdong Province. He arrived in Victoria, BC, in August 1899, paying the head tax of $50.

By 1919, he was living in Cumberland, BC and working as a labourer. He had a wife and daughter in China, but no family in Canada.

Wing Sang died suddenly of natural causes on December 9, 1954. He is buried in Cumberland cemetery.

Mar, Shing

  • Person
  • [1876]-1937

MAR Shing was born in the district of 新寧 Sunning / Xinning (later known as 台山 Toisan / Taishan), 廣東 Guangdong Province. He arrived in Victoria, BC, in May 1903 paying the $100 head tax.

In 1922, he lived in Bella Bella, BC, but by 1924, he was living at 509 Main Street in Vancouver and working as a laundryman. He was married but had no spouse or children in Canada.

He traveled abroad on two occasions in the early 1930s, likely on visits home to China.

Shing passed away on August 15, 1937, in Quathiaski Cove on Quadra Island, BC, while being in the employ of the Quathiaski Canning Co. Upon death, he had no possessions considered by the Campbell River police department to be valuable other than his C.I.28 certificate.

He was buried in Cumberland, BC.

Mar, Fai

  • Person
  • b. 1888

MAR Fai was born around 1888 in the district of 新寧 Sunning / Xinning (later 台山 Toisan / Taishan), 廣東 Guangdong Province. He arrived in Victoria, BC, in 1912, paying the head tax of $500.

By 1924, he was living in Union Bay, BC, and working as a labourer. He was married with a wife in China.

Lee, Yick Hong

  • Person
  • 1896-1971

LEE Yick Hong, later known in Canada as Henry Lee, was born in 1896 in 新寧 Sunning / Xinning in 廣東 Guangdong province. The area would later be known as 台山 Toisan / Taishan. Growing up, he helped his family tend the farm, leaving little time and opportunity for schooling.

In 1914, Henry married CHAN Ngok Nui. The following year, they had their first daughter, Dui Yuet. The couple would eventually have another daughter, Chu Ho, and two sons, Terry and Laurie.

Henry arrived in Calgary, Alberta, in 1916, to join his father and older brother, Yick Hing. He found employment as a dishwasher at a golf country club in Calgary, and as a cook at various restaurants in southern Alberta. At these jobs, Henry saved up his money, hoping to one day open his own restaurant. On a few occasions, he made the long round-trip to visit his family in China.

In 1935, he opened the Silver Grill Restaurant in Fort Macleod, Alberta along with his brothers, Yick Hing and Yick Woo. Business was prosperous and the restaurant remained open for nineteen years, which allowed Henry to provide a comfortable foundation for his family in China. The money he sent back helped his family build a five-storey house and acquire a large tract of farmland in their village.

Henry and his brothers sold the Silver Grill Restaurant in 1945 after WWII. They moved back to Calgary where they opened two grocery stores. Shortly afterwards, he brought his two sons to Calgary to join him; Laurie arrived in 1949, and Terry arrived in 1951. Once he saw that his sons were well-established, Henry retired in 1962 and returned to Hong Kong to join his wife.

Two years later, Henry brought his wife and daughters to Calgary. At long last, the entire family—mother, father, daughters, sons, and grandchildren—was reunited.

Henry enjoyed several years of retirement before passing away in 1971.

Low, Lailey Yon Hon

  • Person
  • 1917-1928

Lailey LOW was born LOW Yon Hon on December 20, 1917 at 1419 East Hastings Street in Vancouver. She was the eldest of four children of LOW Mutt and his wife LEE Shui. By 1924, the family was living outside of Chinatown, at 748 Davie Street.

She passed away on July 26, 1928 at the age of 10. Her death certificate listed her name as Lailey Low.

Choy, Lee Lin

  • Person
  • 1897-1993

CHOY Lee Lin was born in China in 1897.

Her family was well-off until bandits raided the family’s possessions; as a result, Lee Lin was sold as a maid to another wealthy family when she was eight. According to her granddaughter, Diane Yamada, “I asked her if she felt sad about being sold, but she said, ‘No.’ She had been sold for a bag of gold and she was allowed to hold it for a bit by her family. I'm guessing she felt her 'weight in gold'.”

She arrived in Victoria, BC, in 1904 with her foster family, and later settled in Vancouver’s Chinatown. Her husband, MAH Moon Yuen (1878-1943), was a sawmill worker; each day, he walked from their home in Chinatown to the sawmill in New Westminster.

The couple adopted two children: Robert Sing Mah (1929-1981) and Adeline Mah (1921-2000), whom they believed to be of mixed Chinese-Indigenous heritage.

Her family remembers her as an excellent cook and loving grandmother. Her granddaughter Diane recalled, “Because we lived so close to the school, my cousins and I were able to have lunch at my home where Ah Poh lived with us. She would have lunch ready for us every day and often it would be rice with a raw egg and soya sauce mixed in, or canned salmon steamed on top of rice (and we would always fight over who would get the salmon bones). Such fond memories of the comfort food Ah Poh provided for us!”

CHOY Lee Lin died away in 1993.

Wong, George Westley

  • Person
  • 1922-2004

George Westley (Wes) WONG was born on September 8, 1922 in Brandon, Manitoba, to father Sam WONG and mother WONG Quongying (also known as WONG Lim See) as the first of the Wong family’s five children. His father had landed in Canada in 1910, and opened the Carlton Cafe in Brandon around 1919, while his mother had arrived from [台山 Toisan/Taishan previously known as 新寧 Sunning / Xinning] the year before.

Wes was a keen student: when he was eight years old, he started Grade 1 at Easter and completed Grades 1, 2, and 3 in the next 15 months to make up for his late start. A former teacher in China employed in his father’s restaurant also tutored Wes in Chinese for two years. He graduated from Brandon College in 1944 with a Bachelor of Science and pursued postgraduate studies at the University of Toronto and the University of British Columbia.

He joined the Physics department as a faculty member at Brandon College in 1946, where he taught for the next 37 years. He later served as the head of the Physics department, the Dean of Science, and as the university's Vice President after the college attained university status in 1967. Wes dedicated much of his academic career to expanding the university: in 1960, he co-authored the Blueprint for Action, which set the stage for the opening of the first new buildings on campus since 1922. Wes was also instrumental in establishing the Bachelor of General Studies program, the astronomy observatory, and restoring liberal education as a component of all Arts and Science programs.

Wes met Helen Foo in 1941, a mixed-race Chinese Canadian born to Charlie (also known as KOA Hong) and Frances Foo. Throughout his college days, Wes courted Helen, and they were married in Winnipeg in 1945 before settling in Brandon. The couple was married for 58 years and had four children: Westley Douglas (b. 1948), Brian Kenneth (b. 1951), Nancy Ellen (b. 1954), and Alan Michael (b. 1961).

His family remembered him as a dedicated father and grandfather who enjoyed fishing and duck hunting with his children and friends. Wes’s son, Brian, recalled, “there wasn’t much that our Dad couldn’t build or fix … from toys and a dollhouse for his kids to vanities, the cottage and rowboat at Killarney.” According to daughter Nancy, “our Dad made the best sandwiches for road trips. He loved making them. But he always would forget to take them and we’d find them in the fridge later and have to enjoy them ourselves! He’d complain every time!” Wes and Helen were also avid square and round dancers and were members of the Circle 8 Club for over 30 years.

Upon retirement in 1983, Wes was granted Professor Emeritus status but returned in 1987 to chair a fundraising campaign that raised over $5 million for program development. In 2000, he was awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws degree along with the title of Dean Emeritus in 2003.

Wes passed away on January 31, 2004.

Lee, Albert Wa Kei

  • Person
  • 1919-1983

Albert Lee was born LEE Wa Kei on Dominion Day, July 1, 1919, in Victoria, B.C. His father, LEE Hock Chow, had trained as a physician in China but could not practice medicine in Canada. So he became a herbalist, and eventually moved the family to Vancouver to open a herbal shop called On Wo Tong at 11 West Pender Street.

Growing up, Albert knew that as a Chinese person, his career choices were limited. He decided to become a tailor like his older brother, Harry.

When their father passed away, Harry took over the retail space at 11 West Pender and turned it into a tailoring shop and called it On Wo Tailors. Meanwhile, Albert relocated to New Westminster and opened up On Wo Clothiers at 625 Columbia Street. (Not far away, another brother operated a store on Front Street in New Westminster).

On August 9, 1947, Albert married Daisy Lew. Daisy was born in Vancouver, but went back to China with her family when she was 8 or 9. She returned to Canada in 1947 and had only been back a few months when she married Albert. Their wedding photo, taken at Yucho Chow Studio, shows the bride and groom in matching outfits. For the special occasion, Albert had sewn Daisy a wedding suit (jacket and skirt) made from the same fabric as his suit.

The couple would have two children: Teresa (known after marriage as Teresa Sung) and Grant.

Albert’s son, Grant Lee, recounts one of his favourite moments with his father that led to a secret they would share. “When I was a child, let's say Grade 5, we were in the car driving downtown to get a haircut in Chinatown as we lived in East Vancouver. I was in the front seat and leaning on the door. Suddenly, the door opened, and I nearly fell out of the car onto the road. This was near the old Georgia Viaduct. My dad stopped the car on the side of the road and made me promise not to tell my mom. After the haircut, we went to have a special treat to seal the promise: a float and some apple pie, which we seldom ever had.”

Daisy never did find out about this “near miss” until her son was well into adulthood.

Albert passed away in 1983.

Nipp, Philip Lung Po

  • Person
  • 1914-1988

Philip Nipp was born NIP Lung Po in January 1914 in Victoria, B.C.

He was the son of NIP Dip Wai (also known as NIP Toy Wy and NIPP Eng) and Ing Shee (also known as Pau Tai ENG), who had ten children, all born in Canada.

Nip Dip Wai arrived in Canada in 1881 as a labourer on the Canadian Pacific Railway. He later
settled in Cumberland, B.C. with his family before relocating to Victoria. There, they ran a dry
goods and tailoring shop called Yick Lung at Fisgard Street. The shop served as both a business and a
residence for the family. By 1910, the shop, renamed Yick Fung, was located at 544 Fisgard Street in the On Hing Building. The family later moved to a third-floor apartment located at the entrance to Fan Tan Alley from Fisgard Street.

From approximately 1930 onwards, the family also operated a greenhouse known variously as Yick Fung Nurserymen, Sang Sang, and Livingstone Greenhouse. Philip worked at the family greenhouse.

Like his brothers, Philip was an avid athlete, and was an original member of the 1931 Chinese Students Athletic Club basketball team. The team would be inducted into the Victoria Sports Hall of Fame in 2010. He won a city title with the team in its inaugural year. The club went on to compete in softball, soccer, table tennis and bowling, and served as a crucial site of community-building for Chinese Canadians in Victoria.

Philip moved to Vancouver around 1940 to live with his sister Kate’s family. While there, he worked as a baker at BC Bakery, a family-run business at 1500 East Hastings, before running Western Produce at 4150 Main Street.

Philip was uncle and caretaker to the children of his sister Kate and his brother Jim. As a result, he delayed marrying and starting his own family. His eventual marriage was at the urging of his sisters. They considered Philip to be a truly loving and caring man who had sacrificed enough for his siblings and their families. In July 1954, he married a Vancouver-born woman named Ellen. They had three children together.

In 1952, he moved to Prince George where he ran the Embassy Café at 1180 Third Avenue with his brother Bill. The restaurant had six chefs and over a dozen waitresses. In 1957, they opened the Bamboo Room in the building next door, which was one of the first establishments in Prince George where customers dined on white tablecloths. They decorated the expanded restaurant with cardboard tubes that were cut in half and painted to replicate the appearance of bamboo for a more authentic look.

Philip had to take on the running of the businesses (joined by a cousin, Michael) when Bill suddenly passed away at the age of 39.

Philip moved back to Vancouver in 1967 and passed away in late 1988.

Results 601 to 650 of 8347