Clarinetist, composer and ethnomusicologist Elliot Weisgarber (December 5, 1919 - December 31, 2001) was born in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. He studied clarinet and composition at the Eastman School of Music where he earned his Bachelor and Masters degrees in music as well as a Performer's Certificate in clarinet. Following his graduation in 1943, Weisgarber spent one year teaching at Colby Junior College in New Hampshire before moving on to a sixteen-year career at the Woman's College of the University of North Carolina. In 1960, he was invited to join the faculty of the newly-formed music department at the University of British Columbia. Weisgarber's relocation to the west coast helped nourish his well-developed interest in Asian cultures and he spent a great deal of time in Japan studying the classical music of that country and, in particular, developing expertise in shakuhachi (vertical bamboo flute) playing. He retired from UBC in 1984. Weisgarber established the music publishing firm Elliot Weisgarber Associates in 1994 with his daughter Karen Suzanne Smithson and remained active as a composer until his death. When he died in 2001 at the age of 82, Weisgarber had created a catalogue of 450 compositions including chamber music, songs, orchestral works and scores for film, radio and television.

Alfred Wegener was a German geophysicist and meteorologist who worked on the thermodynamics of the atmosphere and originated the theory of continental drift (the Wegener hypothesis), a theory which has won scientific respectability in recent years. He served on and led scientific expeditions to Greenland in 1906-1908, 1912-1917, 1929 and 1930. On the last of these he lost his life.

Kathleen Weeks was born in England but spent most of her life in British Columbia. She wrote historical articles on English history but also enjoyed writing about the history of the Pacific Northwest.

The Weekly Gazette and Home News was published as a farmer's newspaper in Point Grey and circulated in the municipalities of Richmond, Delta, and other districts in the Fraser Valley of British Columbia. Predecessors of the Weekly Gazette date back to 1908. Dorothy Bell became the publisher and editor of the paper in 1918. Leon Ladner was in charge of the paper's editorial policy. The newspaper merged with the Citizen in 1926 to form the Citizen-Gazette.

Arnold Webster was born in Vancouver and raised in Agassiz, B .C. He obtained his M .A. from the University of British Columbia . Webster became a teacher and principal in the Vancouver School Division. He joined the CCF in 1932 and became its B .C . provincial president. He also served on Vancouver Parks Board and as a member of the UBC Senate. In 1953 he succeeded Harold Winch as leader of the provincial CCF and was elected MLA for Vancouver East. He served one term as Leader of the Opposition and then retired briefly from politics. His return after the organization of the NDP, he was elected MP for Vancouver Kingsway and served from 1962-1965.

Ephraim Weber was born in Bridgeport, Ontario. He later moved to Alberta to homestead with his family. After a few years, Weber returned to his studies in Calgary where he also taught for six months. He then attended Queen's University and the University of Chicago before returning to the Prairies. Weber was the author of articles, short stories, poems and a novel.

Jean Patricia Webber (nee Browne) was born on July 10, 1919 in Medicine Hat, Alberta, and received her public school education in Nelson, British Columbia. She completed her teaching training in 1938 at the Provincial Normal School in Victoria where she met her future husband, Bernard George Webber. Jean commenced her career thereafter, teaching in rural, one-room schools. She and Bernard wed in 1941.

Bernard was elected to the B.C. Legislature from 1941 to 1945 as a member of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), representing the constituency of Similkameen. Over this period, Jean ran his constituency and campaign office while maintaining the couple’s home and growing family. Jean made key contributions on behalf of the CCF. As a delegate to the 1943 convention of the CCF in B.C., she spoke prominently in support of the CCF’s motion to extend the franchise to Canadians of Asian heritage. Her drafting of the CCF Indigenous policy in 1945 advocated granting the franchise to persons of Indian status and recognizing Indigenous institutions of government.

Jean resumed her studies at UBC in 1952 while raising five children and teaching part-time. She received her Bachelor of Arts in Mathematics and English in 1957, and her Master of Arts degree in English in 1968. Her responsibilities as a wife and mother limited her career as she couldn’t teach full-time and frequently needed to relocate for her husband’s career. When Jean retired in 1975, she had taught at every grade in the public school system and first year college.

Jean was an active volunteer with the community arts councils in Vernon, Kitimat and Osoyoos, and was first elected president of the Okanagan Mainline Community Arts Council. She contributed to the development of arts policy in the area of access to the arts, representing the region at national and provincial arts conferences. Jean wrote and published extensively on local history and Indigenous local history, including as Editor of Okanagan History: Report of the Okanagan Historical Society from 1982-1988 and as Editor of Okanagan Sources that brought together contemporary Indigenous writers.

Jean died on April 17, 2012 in Kelowna, British Columbia.

Bernard George Webber was born on August 6, 1914 in Winnipeg, Manitoba and became active in politics through his father (Henry (Harry) George Webber) and as a labour journalist. Father and son served as Independent Labor Party delegates to the 1933 Regina Convention at which the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) was formed. In the year prior, Bernard had worked in Ottawa as private secretary to J.S. Woodsworth who would become the first founder of the CCF.

Bernard’s family moved to British Columbia (Shawnigan Lake, Vancouver Island) in 1935. He completed his teacher training in 1938 at the Provincial Normal School in Victoria where he met his future wife, Jean Patricia Browne. Bernard resumed his political career in 1941 when he was elected to the B.C. Legislature as the CCF member representing Similkameen. He served as the region’s Member of Legislative Assembly until 1945, advocating for improvements to education as CCF education critic, rural electrification and infrastructure projects, better working conditions for miners, and attention to the use of Japanese Canadian internment labour.

Bernard ran unsuccessfully for re-election in 1945 and again in 1949. He returned to teaching and his own education, completing his Bachelors degree in 1950 and Master of Arts degree in Literature in 1962, both from UBC. Bernard held teaching and administrative positions at various high schools from 1949-1965, after which he became a full-time education administrator with appointments in the school districts of Vernon, Kitimat, South Okanagan and Keremeos. He concluded his career in Victoria with the Ministry of Education from 1977-1979 before retiring as an award-winning educator and administrator. In particular, he advocated for the development of libraries, and curriculum on Indigenous languages, history and culture.

Bernard remained active in his retirement through writing, including of political biographies. He also served on the executive of various historical societies, including as President of the Okanagan Historical Society from 1982-1991. He died December 5, 2000 in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Bernard George Webber and Jean Patricia Browne met while studying for their respective teaching certifications at Provincial Normal School in Victoria, British Columbia. After graduating in 1938, they took positions in rural schools, maintaining contact by correspondence. The couple married in 1941 and made Osoyoos their first home. Bernard had been active in politics with the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) since a teenager in Winnipeg, Manitoba. He was nominated and elected as CCF candidate for Member of Legislative Assembly in 1941 representing Similkameen, serving as education critic until 1945. Throughout this time, Jean ran his constituency office and was a valued speaker on CCF issues while she maintained the couple’s home and growing family in Penticton.

After Bernard’s unsuccessful run in the next two general elections in B.C. in 1945 and 1949, the couple returned to their teaching careers. Bernard and Jean fought hard to obtain and upgrade their education. For many years while working and raising their family, they took additional courses at UBC to earn their respective Bachelors and Masters degrees, usually through summer courses.

Bernard enjoyed a distinguished career in education administration at the school, district and ministry levels, retiring in 1979 as a celebrated educator and administrator. Conversely, Jean’s teaching career reflected the prevailing attitudes about the role of women in society, and her obligations as wife and mother of five children. Bernard’s career advanced as Jean struggled to have her qualifications recognized. Jean retired in 1975 having specialized in teaching in multi-graded rural schools.

Bernard and Jean contributed to the advancement of Indigenous rights and education across their political, professional and volunteer lives. They maintained a lifelong commitment to the issue through their close friendship with Anthony Walsh, whom they met in 1940 while Walsh was teacher at the Inkameep Day School on the Nk’mip reserve. Walsh was renowned for his teaching within the day school system that integrated Indigenous knowledge and culture into classroom learning and instilled pride in his students’ native heritage at a time when the government’s residential school system sought to erase Indigenous culture. His methods contributed directly to the resurgence of Indigenous cultural production in the region, which Bernard and Jean actively supported in the 1940s and 50s through amateur theatre and drama festivals, including as members of the Society for the Revival of Indian Arts and Crafts. As an education administrator, Bernard advocated for courses in Indigenous languages, history and culture, specifically of the Haisla people while as District Superintendent of Schools in Kitimat. Jean advocated for Indigenous issues through her various writing; notably, in her authorship of the CCF’s Indigenous policy in 1945, and in her writing and editing in the 1980s on the Indigenous history of the Okanagan.

Jean and Bernard were active volunteering in local arts councils and historical societies, particularly after moving to the Okanagan in 1965. Jean made significant contributions to federal and provincial arts policy as a representative of the region. They wrote extensively on the local history of the Okanagan and Kootenays, including over many years as members of the Okanagan Historical Society where Jean served as editor of Okanagan History: Report of the Okanagan Historical Society from 1982-1988 and Bernard as its President from 1989-1991.

The couple’s careers in politics and education brought them to many rural regions of British Columbia and particularly the Okanagan where they became involved also in local arts and history. Together, they contributed to the development of political thought, the education system, arts and culture policy, history writing, and the Indigenous heritage of the province.

Born in Hawksbury, Ontario, in 1945, but raised mainly in British Columbia, Tom Wayman graduated with a BA from the University of British Columbia and an MFA in English and Creative Writing from the University of California at Irvine in 1968. Since that time he has worked as a writer-in-residence and faculty member at a variety of institutions. He worked as a writer-in-residence at the University of Windsor (1975-76), University of Alberta (1978-1979), Simon Fraser University (Spring, 1983), and University of Toronto (Spring 1996). He has taught at Colorado State University (1968 -
69), Wayne State University (1976-77), David Thompson University (1980-82), Banff School of Fine Arts (Summers, 1980, 1982), Kootenay School of Writing (1984-87), Okanagan College and Okanagan University College (1990-91, 1992-95), Kootenay School of the Arts (1991-92, 1995-98), and Kwantlen College and Kwantlen University College, Surrey (Fall 1983, 1988-present) . His work career has included a number of blue-collar and white-collar jobs in Canada and the United States. Wayman is also a founder of both the Kootenay School of Writing and the Vancouver Industrial Writers Union. Tom Wayman is widely known as a work poet well versed in work writing in North America. He has written, compiled and contributed to many books and periodicals. His printed collections of poetry include Waiting for Wayman (1973), Money and Rain (1975), Living on the Ground (1980), Introducing Tom Wayman : Selected Poems (1973-80), The Face of Jack Munro (1986), In a Small House on the Outskirts of Heaven (1989), I'll be Right Back : New & Selected Poems 1980-1996 (1997), and The Colours of the Forest (1999) . He has edited a variety of anthologies
including Beaton Abbot's got the Contract (1974), A Government Job at Last (1976), Going for Coffee (1987), East of Main : An Anthology of Poems from East Vancouver (1989), Paperwork (1991) and The Dominion of Love, contemporary Canadian love poems (2001). He also has poems in many Canadian and U.S. anthologies.

Born in Toronto, Reginald Watters earned his B.A. (1935), M.A. (1937) from the University of Toronto and Ph.D. (1941) from the University of Wisconsin. He taught English at the Universities of Washington and Indiana before joining the Department of English at the University of British Columbia in 1956. He left the university in 1961 to assume a position at Royal Military College, Kingston. Amongst his numerous publications, Watters edited British Columbia: A Centennial Anthology (1958) and A Checklist of Canadian Literature and Background Materials, 1628-1960 (1959).

Ernest L. Watson was born in Saskatoon, Sask., but grew up in Vancouver. He attended the University of British Columbia, earning a BASc in 1940. After working in the private sector, he returned to UBC in 1952 as a part-time lecturer in Agricultural Engineering. He earned an MSc from the University of California (Davis) in 1955. Watson specialized in food processing engineering and continued to work in the department until his retirement in 1980.

Gertrude Watney (née Smith) was born in New Denver, B.C. After completing her elementary and high school education in New Denver, Smith came to the University of British Columbia, earning a B.A. in 1923. Smith continued her career at UBC and obtained her M.A. in zoology in 1926. From 1926 to 1928, she served as an instructor in biology and then in zoology. During 1926-1928, Smith researched the Pacific Biological Station at Nanaimo. In 1928 Smith began graduate work at the University of California at Berkeley (she would obtain her Ph.D. from that institution in 1934). In 1930 she returned to UBC as an assistant professor in zoology and remained at the University until 1940. Smith married Reverend Doug P. Watney, a professor of theology at the Anglican Theological College, in 1937.

David Arthur Watmough was born August 17, 1926 in Leyton, Essex, near London, England. His parents Gerald Arthur Watmough and Ethel Florence Bassett returned to the family's native Cornwall soon after, and David Watmough passed his childhood on a farm in St. Kew, near Bodmin, Cornwall. From 1937 to 1943 Watmough was educated at The Cooper's Company School, London, after which he was briefly employed as a reporter for The Cornish Guardian, Bodmin. He saw active service as an Ordinary Seaman in the Royal Navy from 1944 to 1945 when he was discharged. Watmough returned to London to read theology at King's College at the University of London until 1949 when he took his degree. His studies at King's College led him to France to research on the Catholic priest-worker movement, from which he produced a book, A Church Renascent (published in 1951). In 1949 Watmough moved to France, travelling to Paris, Lyons and Marseilles to complete this first book, while also tutoring English. In Paris in 1951 he joined company with an American named Floyd St. Clair, who remained his life partner until Floyd's death in 2009. Watmough arrived in New York in 1952 and travelled to Palo Alto, California where he audited courses in creative writing given at Stanford University by Wallace Stegner. Returning to the East coast he assumed employment as an assistant editor at the Holy Cross Press, West Park, New York from 1953 to 1954. With his father's illness in the spring of 1955 Watmough returned to England to become a Talks producer for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) Third Programme, and in 1956 an editor with Ace Books, London. Watmough travelled again to the United States in 1957, to San Francisco where from 1957 to 1960 he continued to write fiction, completed a book on D.H. Lawrence, and was a critic and feature writer for The San Francisco Examiner and book reviewer for KPFA Radio and KQED Television stations. For the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) he covered the 1961 and successive summer International Vancouver Festivals as a music and theatre critic.;Watmough settled permanently in 1962 in Vancouver, Canada, and his partner Floyd became a much-beloved UBC French professor and opera critic. Watmough became a Canadian citizen in 1969 following several years as a freelance broadcaster for the CBC hosting Talking About Books from 1961 to 1967 and as a columnist on visual arts and theatre for The Vancouver Sun from 1965 to 1969. As a critic Watmough wrote for the London journal Opera, and reviewed for The New York Times Book Review, The Spectator, Canadian Literature, Canadian Theatre Review, Saturday Night and other journals. By the mid sixties he began to write plays such as Friedhof, produced in Canada and in Europe, and My Mother's House Has Too Many Rooms, produced in the United States, and others which aired on CBC Television and Radio. In 1968 he presented dramatic monologues entitled Pictures from a Dying Landscape in Vancouver, Toronto, New Jersey and New York City, and soon was performing these monodramas on radio and touring across Canada, the United States, West Germany and the United Kingdom. In British Columbia Watmough was head in 1968 and 1969 of creative writing at the Okanagan Summer School of the Arts, served as the first president of the Writers Federation of British Columbia, and represented British Columbia writers for The Writers Union of Canada; he also served as first chairman of the writers' guild for the Association of Canadian Television and Radio Artists. A book of plays, Names for the Numbered Years, was published in 1967 by Bau-Xi Art Gallery of Vancouver in a limited edition illustrated by Claude Breeze.;During the seventies Watmough performed widely, wrote and published several collections of short stories and monodramas including Ashes For Easter and a novel No More Into the Garden, made an LP recording of Pictures from a Dying Landscape, and received a Canada Council Senior Arts award, in 1976. From 1979 to 1981 he hosted his own arts programme ArtsLib for CBC Television. He edited the Vancouver Fiction anthology and wrote The Unlikely Pioneer, a history of Western Canadian opera centering on Irving Guttman, both books appearing in 1985. In the eighties Watmough contributed to a number of anthologies, published a second novel The Year of Fears, and continued to write numerous short stories, some of which were published in three collections, The Connecticut Countess, Fury, and Vibrations in Time, which was also released as a recording on compact disc and cassette. From 1991 to 1993 he was a regular columnist for Vancouver Step magazine and completed a third novel published in 1992, Thy Mother's Glass, and then published a fourth in 1994, The Time of the Kingfishers, as well as continuing to write short stories as 'connected fictions' such as Hunting With Diana. For half a century Watmough was engaged in writing not only as an author and activist, but additionally as a correspondent with many literary figures, notably W. H. Auden, Margaret Laurence, Timothy Findley, Maria Tippett, and Jane Rule, as well as visual artists John Koerner and Gordon Smith, among others. Watmough was the first openly gay male writer in British Columbia and produced 20 books over the course of six decades. He passed away in 2017.

Hanne Wassermann Walker was born on May 13, 1893 to Jewish parents Rudolf Herrmann (23 February 1846-31 May 1922) and Hedwig Herrmann née Heller (3 January 1863-28 December 1940) in Vienna, Austria. Her father worked as an architect for the city and her mother did not work outside the home, instead looking after Hanne and her one other daughter, Elizabeth Fischer née Herrmann (11 December 1887- 1981).

As a teenager, Hanne studied at Hermine Brabbée’s Civic School for Girls, a private school which would have offered an education for people pursuing jobs in the commercial or trade sectors rather than for those planning to get a traditional university degree. She went on to study at the “Lehr- und Versuchsanstalt für Photographie und Reproduktionsverfahren” (Teaching and Research Institute for Photography and Reproduction Processes) in Vienna from 1912-1914. Here Hanne studied such subjects as portrait photography, freehand drawing, chemistry, commercial/business math and writing, and more. Hanne would go on to become a prolific amateur photographer, however, her true calling was in the field of health and fitness.

After completion of her studies in photography and graphic reproduction, Hanne attended the Röntgen Institute, Vienna's first x-ray institute, where she learned about human anatomy and physical wellness. She completed her time there around 1917. During this period, Hanne married Dr. Gustav Wassermann, however their union was short-lived; the couple wed in July 1914 and in January 1915 Gustav died from a heart-related condition.

Hanne pioneered a series of stretches and exercises for women she called The Hanne Wassermann Method, which she described as a form of gymnastics. She focused not only on physical “improvements” but also the psychology of fitness, describing her method as “The First Psychologically Based Gymnastic System with Movement Control”. She documented these routines through written publications and extensive photo series. Her exercises were designed to help practitioners lose weight, tone figures, and reduce the “effect of age” while also improving one’s overall mental and physical wellbeing. She was also a proponent of winter sports, physical education for children, and swimming lessons, the latter which she also taught.

Hanne worked as a personal trainer, teacher, and fitness advocate at a time when the concepts of physical culture and education were only just beginning to take hold on a wider scale. She opened a school (“Gymnastikschule”) in Vienna, taught at an upscale resort in Italy, worked as a personal trainer, and sought to advance her philosophy and fitness techniques through lectures, books, pamphlets, and newspaper/magazine articles. These works featured titles like: “Daily Gymnastics”, “Everywoman The Sculptor of Her Own Body”, “Nice on the Outside, Ugly on the Inside”, and “Movement and Figure Control”. Her list of friends and clients was comprised of some the most elite members of Austrian/European society during the interwar period, including Princess Helen of Greece, Princess Marguerita of Aosta, Baron Louis Rothschild, and actress Hedy Lamarr.

During the summer, Hanne often traveled throughout Europe – travels she documented with her camera. Much of the resulting photographs depict the landscapes and architecture of Austria, France, Italy, and Greece. Hanne spent lots of time on the Italian islands of Brioni (which later became part of Croatia). Brioni had long been a popular travel destination for the upper classes of Europe, especially Vienna, and it was to here that Hanne brought her physical fitness method in the summertime, offering her classes and swimming lessons at the Hotel Brioni.

Featured in many of Hanne’s travel photographs from between 1926 and 1938 is a man who appears to have been her boyfriend/lover. However, his name is not identified on any of the photographs in this fonds, nor do there appear to be letters or other records that shed light on his identity and relationship with Hanne. Around 1934, Hanne met her future husband George Dickson Walker (19 July 1889-11 July 1981). George was a Presbyterian minister with a background in psychology. It is unclear from the records in this fonds exactly how they met or what the early years of their relationship were like, however, George did visit Austria occasionally as a tourist and it may have been during one of these trips that he and Hanne met. George, who was born in Northern Ireland, was living and working in Manchester, England, in 1934. He moved with his wife, Rachel, and daughter, Norah, to the Channel Islands in 1936; according to U.S. immigration paperwork filled out by George years later, in 1936 his wife deserted him. (He lost track of them when Germany occupied the Channel Islands in 1940, although according to correspondence with his brother years later, George appears to have had some knowledge of his daughter’s life after the war.)

Following Nazi Germany’s 1938 annexation of Austria, Hanne and her family began making preparations to emigrate from Europe. However, she did not depart immediately from Austria. Hanne traveled, worked, and lived in other parts of Europe (Britain and Italy in particular) during this time. It was not until December 1939 that Hanne left England for New York, followed shortly afterwards by her mother and George. Hanne’s journey to the U.S. was made possible thanks in part to her friend and client Marie Louise Wanamaker, a Philadelphia department store heiress who wrote letters on Hanne’s behalf and helped her navigate the American immigration system.

For the next three years, Hanne worked as a fitness instructor and lecturer at various hotels and studios across the country, making La Jolla, California, her temporary home. During this time she also developed a product called the “Wassermann Rescue Sling,” which was designed to more safely lift and transport injured bodies in the event of a disaster or military attack; she offered training courses on the sling’s use and issued “Modern Rescue & Transportation” certificates to successful participants.

On June 15, 1943, Hanne married George in Los Angeles and the two relocated to British Columbia, ultimately settling on the North Shore of Burrard Inlet, first in North Vancouver and then in West Vancouver. They resided here for the rest of their lives. Hanne taught private fitness classes to some of Vancouver’s wealthiest and most influential citizens, although she did not share with them stories or details of her earlier life in Europe. In addition to fitness classes, Hanne also provided some physiotherapy services such as massages.

During her 43 years in British Columbia, Hanne was a prolific amateur photographer, documenting her life with George (which included several pet dogs over the years) and much of the travel they did together. (Both were avid campers.) Hanne’s landscape photography captures many B.C. lakes and mountains during the mid-20th century. The subjects of her portrait photography include members of the Koerner, Prentice, Molnar, and other Vancouver families, as well as George and friends of theirs. In addition to photography, Hanne was also a talented sculptor.

Hanne died May 28, 1986 at the age of 93.