Showing 3244 results

authority records
MS 25 (Salmon Arm Museum) · Person · 1837-1933

Henry Fraser was born in Ceylon and came to Canada in 1850. He settled in Salmon Arm, B.C. in 1885. He hunted and trapped, as well as carried on general farming and dairying. He married Alice Jirard in 1900 and had two children. He was one of the earliest settlers in the Salmon Arm area.

JEH
MS 27 · Person · 1886-1895

JEH lived at 'The Grange' and was both a surveyor and a rancher. His partner (wife?) was named Edith.

Staples, Otis, 1847-1912
MS 28 · Person · 1847-1912

Otis Staples was born in 1847 in New Brunswick. He left New Brunswick in 1869 and settled in Stillwater, Minnesota to learn the lumber business. His pregnant wife was killed there in a buggy crash. The family tragedy and shrinking timber limits made Otis look elsewhere. He came west on the CPR, meeting H.R. MacMillan, who encouraged him to look at B.C.’s lumber-rich interior. Otis arrived at Fort Steele in October 1903, returned once to the U.S., then came to stay in 1904. He built the Otis Staples Lumber Co. mill in 1904, northwest of Cranbrook, working there until his death from meningitis in 1912.

Gesell, Herman
MS 28 (Salmon Arm Museum) · Person · 1863-1939

Herman Gesell was born in Austria in 1863. He emigrated to the USA in 1882, but came to BC with the construction of the CPR in 1896. He filed a homestead on property five miles northwest of Sicamous. He received his patent in 1912. Gesell cleared forty acres of the 160 he filed on. After meeting his requirements, Gesell took time to continue his travels and record landscapes in his sketch books. He travelled to North Dakota, to Lake Pend D'Oreille to visit the first nation's people and to Argentina to visit with his brother Silvio. Herman Gesell succumbed to a kidney infection in 1939. His homestead was burned by authorities and neighbour Alex Woods was asked to take care of his effects, mostly paintings and books. According to John Tapson-Jones, the estate could not be sent to Germany because of the wartime restrictions.

MS 29 · Person · 1881-1952

Robert Tindale Richardson lived at Canal Flats, B.C., and was a local historian. He worked for Mr. George E. Henderson constructing the Bull River power plant starting in 1904. In 1945, Mr. Richardson became a police magistrate in Kimberley.

MS 31 (Salmon Arm Museum) · Person · 1923-

Lois May Harrington was born 02 May, 1923 in Salmon Arm to Bernard Gibb (Barney) Harrington and Ethel Jameson. Lois attended Broadview School, Salmon Arm Secondary, and St. Anne's Academy in Kamloops. She trained as a medical stenographer.

Lois married Carl Weber in 1949. The couple had nine children and she devoted herself to raising her children. Her interests were painting, poetry, gardening, playing scrabble and bingo, and was known to have a good sense of humour She attended the Catholic Church faithfully. In 1972 she married Franz Lobermayer.

Our interest in Lois May Harrington stems from the fact that she was a pupil at the Boardview Elementary School which was moved to R.J. Haney Heritag Village in 1988. The collection consists of her Broadveiw school records which show that she was an honour roll student in 1931 and from 1934-1936. Lois graduated from Broadview School i 1936.

Choquette, Wayne
MS 33 · Person · [1945-]

Wayne Choquette is an archaeologist who worked chiefly in the East Kootenay during the 1970's and 1980's.

MS 34 · Person · 1901-1969

Claude Everett Schaeffer, 1901-1969, was born in Ohio, USA. He received his BA from the University of Washington in 1927 and worked for the family firm until beginning graduate work at Yale in 1931. In 1934 he worked as a field investigator under Clark Wissler, for the American Museum of History. He entered the University of Pennsylvania in 1937 and received his PhD in anthropology in 1940. Dr. Schaeffer was assistant state archaeologist for the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, 1940-1947, and director of the Museum of the Plains Indians in Browning, Montana, 1947-1954. He resigned due to poor health, but on his recuperation was curator of the Klamath County Museum, 1955, and of the Oregon Historical Society, 1956-1959, before regaining his old post in Browning. He remained at the Museum of the Plains Indians until his retirement in 1966. He was a productive scholar, and devoted much of his life to gathering field data from the Flathead, Kootenay and Blackfoot. On his retirement, he planned to develop much of this material into books and articles, but he died before this could be achieved.

Jamieson, Roland A.
MS 34 (Salmon Arm Museum) · Person · 1914-1999

Roland (Rollie) Jamieson, born in Calgary, 1914, came to the Salmon Arm area as a boy of 10 years. He was the eldest of six children. Obliged to leave school in grade 10, he became a plumber's helper for M.M. Carroll and in 1945, Roland took over the Carroll & Co., plumbing and heating sheet metal works.

After retirement from his plumbing and heating business in 1979, Jamieson pursued his neglected interest in history and recorded many stories of Salmon Arm and its more prominent people. The collection primarily consists of his manuscripts and research material and notes.

Roland Jamieson and his wife, Marjorie’s Critchley (1921-1977) had five children: Susan (Ward), Mary (Paul), Nancy (Burke), Joanne (Gollan), and Lawrence. Following Marjorie’s death, he married Jean Davies. Roland Jamieson died February 16, 1999.

MS 36 · Person · 1868-1947

Stanley B. Harrison was born near London, England in 1868. He enlisted in the 1st Dragoons in 1887 and was discharged in 1890. He then joined the North West Mounted Police in 1891 and purchased his discharge in 1894. He died in Cranbrook, B.C. in 1947.

Egge, Reg, 1898-1979
MS 37 · Person · 1898-1979

Ragnvald (Reg) Egge was born in Norway in 1898 and later immigrated to Canada. A father, a brother and many other relatives remained living in Norway. Another brother also came to Canada and several other relatives came either to Canada or the U.S. Reg's first marriage was to Gladys with whom he had one child, Naomi. He later married Doris. Reg and Doris were residents at Fort Steele from the late 1930s through the 1970s. Reg Egge's life at Fort Steele is typical of the continual struggle to earn a living experienced by most people in East Kootenay through the 1930s and 1940s. He worked at logging for Alan Moore of the Fort Steele Trading Company. As well, he worked at prospecting and mining. Reg Egge was employed during part of the Depression by William Drayton, a New York mining engineer whose project was to find the original channel of Wild Horse Creek, thereby locating unworked gold-bearing ground. None of the local residents believed in the viability of this work, but all wanted to continue as it paid wages. According to Egge nothing much was ever found, but several of the workers used to carry a little gold free-panned out of known Wild Horse diggings. Whenever the engineer was on the site one of the men would roll a cigarette with some of the fine gold in it, then inadvertently knock his cigarette ashes into the gold pan. The resulting colours in the pan provided the encouragement Drayton needed to keep funding the project. Reg Egge also worked claims of his own on the Moyie River, combining with Wendell Dempsey to sink a shaft more than 100 feet through hard pan, by hand. Nothing much was ever found, but the attempt was typical of the belief people had in the area, and also of the inventiveness which allowed exploration and development with virtually no money. In 1959 Reg and Doris Egge expanded their home at Fort Steele to allow for operating the Fort Steele Post Office. Doris officially became the postmistress in 1960, providing service to the area until the post office was moved out of the historic site in the late 1970s. During this period Reg became famous for his lush and beautiful yard which featured irises from all over Canada. Reg Egge died in 1979.

Casselman, Verdun, 1916-1990
MS 39 · Person · 1916-1990

Verdun Casselman was an East Kootenay rancher and poet. As a retirement project, he collected information on Bull River in order to write a book entitled "From Ties to Water", published in 1988.

Lingford, Rex
MS 39 (Salmon Arm Museum) · Person · 1881-1968

Reginald (Rex) Percival Breillet Lingford was born in Birkenhead, England. He trained as a photographer at Villiers and Quick in Bristol, England. Lingford arrived in Salmon Arm in 1909, joining brothers Cecil and Kenneth and uncle, Charlie Ehlers. Shortly before emigrating, he purchased a full plate camera with a Ross-Zeiss lens at a second hand store in London.
Lingford opened a photography studio in Salmon Arm in the second McGuire Store, where the road to the wharf crossed the railway tracks. His competition was C.E. Woodbridge, who advertised "Toronto prices". Rivalry was well documented in the local newspaper, the Salmon Arm Observer. The competition was intense but brief, ending in October 1909 when Lingford purchased the Woodbridge business.

By August 5, 1910, Lingford had taken on a partner, W.J. Honey, and called the business "The Studio". Lingford operated his photographic business from 1909 to 1914. His best pictures were landscapes, a talent inherited from his father and grandfather, both landscape artists.

Lingford's career as a professional photographer ended with the beginning of WW I. He joined the BC Horse Infantry and received a medal for Bravery in the Field as a non-commissioned soldier. Later, as an officer, he received the Military Cross.

When Lingford returned to Salmon Arm, he felt no urge to resume work as a photographer. According to his memoirs, the financial reward was too small. On August 18, 1919, Lingford was appointed City Clerk and Collector, an administrative position with the City of Salmon Arm. The position paid $100 a month. He spent the next thirty-one years working as the city clerk, retiring August 31, 1950.

Rex Lingford married Laura Wilcox in 1921 and raised two children, Noel and Cynthia.

Rex Lingford returned to Salmon Arm a strong Christian. He made sense of the things he had seen in war through his belief in God. He was active in St. John's Anglican Church, serving as Rector's Warden and Church School Superintendent. He was secretary-treasurer of the Salmon Arm Boat Club and involved in the Salmon Arm Fish and Game Protective Association.

MS 40 · Person · 1903-1966

Bayard Iverson was born in Oliver, B. C. in 1903 and came to teach at the Wardner school when he was quite young. He taught at Wardner for some time, then moved to the Fort Steele school because of disciplinary problems being experienced there with some of the older students. Iverson was a fair disciplinarian and picked out the largest of the offenders to go out behind the school with him. After administering a resounding thrashing to the student, there were no further disciplinary problems at Fort Steele. Bayard Iverson married Jean Nicol of Fort Steele. He worked as a teacher and assisted his brothers and sisters to graduate from university. Once they were finished their studies, he returned to university to become a mining engineer. After graduation he worked at Yellowknife and then at Kimberley. He was a serious student of regional history - researching, writing, and being active in local historical associations. He died in Marysville, B. C. in 1966.

Mitchell, David Salmond
MS 45 (Salmon Arm Museum) · Person · 1868-1951

Scottish born David Salmond (Scotty) Mitchell was an influential Shuswap resident. In his native Scotland, he was trained as an architectural draftsman, He immigrated to Canada in 1889 and worked in Vancouver until he filed for a homestead in Canoe in 1901.

When the federal governments fish hatchery was established at Tappen in 1901, he was appointed as its first, and only, superintendent, continuing in that capacity until the hatchery was abandoned in 1916. Mitchell was widely recognized as an expert on salmon and their propagation.

An outdoors man, he prospected for minerals throughout the Shuswap district and knew its mountains and valleys. At the same time, he was delving into the natural and human history of the area. He particularly respected and admired the way of life of the First Nations People, and in a report to the Fisheries Department, noted their sustainable lifestyle.

The artifacts related to the archival collection are held in the Salmon Arm Museum's collection and consists of personal effects, survey equipment, cartography tools, maps, and geological samples.

Mitchell was a curious fellow. He took up a homestead at Larch Hills. Mitchell's later years were spent reading widely, writing pioneer stories and essays, prospecting, and subsistence farming until his death at the Kamloops Provincial Home, February 8, 1951 at age eighty-three.

Kay, Dave
MS 47 · Person · 1895-1988

Dave Kay was born in 1895 in Listowel, Ontario. Following his high school graduation, he went to a linotype school in Toronto to learn the printing business and apprenticed with the Listowel Banner and then worked for the Listowel Standard. When the Cranbrook Herald was sold in 1915, Dave Kay's elder brother, Tom Kay, was hired to run the newspaper under W.B. McFarlane. Dave Kay then moved to Cranbrook to work for the Herald as a linotype operator from 1915 to 1918. He worked briefly for the Medicine Hat News and the Vancouver World and then again for the Herald until persuaded to work for its rival paper, the Cranbrook Courier. With two others, Dave Kay became owner of the Courier which he ran until his retirement in 1961. With his partner D.A. (Dan) MacDonald, he edited a history column "Come With Me to Yesterday" in the Cranbrook newspaper for over 15 years starting in 1961. The two of them also published several small local history pamphlets and two books, "Come With Me to Yesterday" and "Fort Steele". Dave Kay was also a musician with the Cranbrook City Band, playing the pianoforte, trombone, euphonium and saxophone. In the 1940's, Dave Kay and his wife, Rita, performed drama at the Thimble Theatre. Dave Kay was an active member of the East Kootenay Historical Association, sometimes serving as its secretary. He also played a role in the reconstruction of the Prospector printing office at Fort Steele and after, the reconstruction of the Cariboo Sentinel in Barkerville. He also served on the House Committee of the F.W. Green Memorial Home, serving at one point as the Chairman. Dave Kay was married to Beatrice Alan, with whom he had two children, John and Marjie. Beatrice died in 1929 and in 1937, Dave Kay married Rita Jonasson. In 1978, Dave Kay moved to Creston where he died in 1988 at the age of 93.

MacDonald, Dan
MS 47 · Person · 1898-1979

Dan McDonald, a Maritimer who settled in the Kootenays after serving in Europe during World War II, was employed by CP Rail in the tie and timber division. He retired in 1961. Dan MacDonald was also curator of the first Fort Steele museum.

Jordon, Mabel E., 1908-1993
MS 48 · Person · 1908-1993

Mabel E. Jordon was born in Hartest, Suffolk, England in 1908 and immigrated to Canada at an early age. She married Benjamin Marsh Jordon at Perry Creek, B. C. and together they lived in the East Kootenay area for many years before moving to Calgary, Alberta. Mabel Jordon was a founding member and officer of the East Kootenay Historical Society. She was a history enthusiast and spent much of her time researching and writing the history of the East Kootenay. Her two main historical interests were David Thompson and William Baillie-Grohman. She published several articles on the lives of these two men in historical magazines and local newspapers. She travelled and photographed many of the historical sites dedicated to David Thompson in Canada, the USA, and in England. She died in Calgary in 1993.

Hellmen, Fee, 1918-1998
MS 49 · Person · 1918-1998

Fee Hellmen was born Ernest Fridolf Hellmen in 1918 at Wardner, B.C. He attended school and resided there until 1933. He married Alta Mae Goodwin and they had a family of four children. Fee and his family have lived throughout the Kootenay valley from Edgewater to a logging camp in Gold Creek. Fee worked for 20 years in the lumbering industry in East Kootenay, falling with a crosscut saw and loading boxcars with lumber. He was known as an expert saw filer, and would make extra money in camp sharpening saws for other fallers after supper. Fee worked for 13 years at the Farmers' Coop Store in Cranbrook, the last three as a manager of the store. While working at the Coop, Fee also ran a guiding business. He started working on Jim White and Harry Bjorn's territory on Wild Horse Creek/Top of the World. He then bought his own territory, which encompassed all the area of Lamb Creek above Mineral Lake, Moyie above Lumberton, and Perry Creek above Old Town. He had a good business on this land, finally selling when the Coop told him to choose between guiding and working in the store, as they could no longer give him all fall off every year. He sold the territory to Wally Faiers for one thousand dollars. He was employed as a security guard at Fort Steele Heritage Town from 1975 to 1980 when he retired. From 1980 on, he wrote "From the Coals of My Campfire", a newspaper column for the Kootenay Advertiser. In 1990, he had "Kootenay Country – One Man’s Life in the Canadian Rockies" published.

Perrier, Hector Joseph
MS 50 (Salmon Arm Museum) · Person · 1877-1966

Hector Joseph Perrier was born 18 July 1877 at Alfred, Ontario. When he was twenty-six years old, he moved to Nelson, BC where he obtained employment at David Wadd's Studio and trained as a photographer.

In 1907 he opened a studio in Pincher Creek, AB where he did portrait work and finishing film for amateurs. He married Ellen in 1909. The couple had two children, Arthur and Irene. They continued to live in Pincer Creek until 1915, when the family moved to Salmon Arm and Perrier opened a photography studio.

Perrier's work in Salmon Arm included portraits and landscapes. His portraits were often taken in his subject's homes, a significant departure from previous photographic styles. Perrier posed many of his subjects in natural settings, so we get a closer glimpse of the people behind the portraits. His wartime postcards are a fine record of military activities. Perrier captured scenes of men as they enlisted to fight overseas. His streetscapes are an uncommon record of Salmon Arm in its early years.

Near the end of WW I, Perrier moved to Edmonton where he worked in other professions, as a salesman, clerk and insurance agent. However, he continued to work in the darkroom, retouching photographs for Alderson Photography and McCutcheon's.

In 1927 Perrier moved to Jasper, AB where he opened a photograph finishing business. According to authors Jack McCuaig and Don Stewart, he later concentrated on the retail trade and was able to pursue landscape photography once again.

Perrier retired in 1948 and his son, Art, took over the business. Perrier died in St. Albert, AB in Youville Home of the Sisters of Charity (Grey Nuns) July 21, 1966. Perrier was buried in the Jasper Cemetery.

Reinhard, William
MS 53 (Salmon Arm Museum) · Person · 1851-1922

Dr. William Reinhard was Salmon Arm's first resident doctor. Born Georg Theodore Adolf Wilhelm Reinhard in Bavaria (1851-1922), known now as Melsungen, Germany, William Reinhard studied medicine at four prominent universities in Europe, including Berlin, Baden, Munich, and Zurich. Dr. Reinhard specialized in studies of the ear, eye, nose and throat. In the early 1880s, he moved to Wisconsin to join his brothers. He married Marie Buchbinder in 1883 and practiced medicine there for a short while. The couple had four children while living in Wisconsin, two boys and two girls: Oscar, Anna, Thekla and Gus. In 1886, the family was joined by Caroline (also known as Lina or Lena). Lina came to Wisconsin to help her sister with the large family and to take care of her younger brother Carl.

In 1888 the family moved to Ladner's Landing in British Columbia, Canada where another son, Wilhelm, was born. Marie died in Ladner's Landing in 1891, at the age of 31. Lina assumed the mother role to the young children. The family moved to Vernon to purchase an already-established practice. Since Dr. Reinhard considered it improper to live with an unmarried woman, he moved to Barkerville for a year and became house physician there. By 1893, he had returned to Vernon and had married his sister-in-law, Caroline Buchbinder.

Dr. Reinhard came to practice medicine in Salmon Arm in 1906. In 1910 he purchased the Orange Hall and remodelled the building for offices. The Salmon Arm practice was sold in 1913 when Dr. Reinhard became seriously ill. He returned to Salmon Arm in 1916 and practiced for a year. Dr. Reinhard also moved his practice to Armstrong and Nelson, while his family remained in Vernon. In 1907 he bought and built a pre-fabricated house on the East Hill of Vernon. Eventually, Dr. Reinhard practiced medicine in the logging camps on the Queen Charlotte Islands and then became the director of the government hospital in Bella Coola. He died of a heart attack in 1922 and is buried in Vernon alongside of his wife, Lina, and his sons Gus and Oscar.

MS 54 · Person · [1885]-1920

Matilda C. de Lotbiniere-Harwood was born in South Africa, becoming a successful musician and teacher. After the end of the Boer War, Sir Sam Steele brought his family and brother-in-law, Dr. A.C. de Lotbiniere-Harwood, with him to South Africa where Miss Norgarb and Dr. A.C. de Lotbiniere-Harwood met. In 1907, she emigrated to Canada to marry the Edmonton dentist. Nearly all her musical compositions had patriotic themes: South African Anthem, Imperial Anthem, From the Empire’s Dead, In Memoriam, To the Dead, In Flanders Fields, Solitude, United South African March, General Sir Sam Steele’s March, Victory March, March of the Canadian Men, Suite of Oriental Waltzes, The Fighting Fifty-First. In 1919, she and her husband left Edmonton to move to St. Paul de Metis. She died in Edmonton in 1920.

MS 55 · Person · 1855-1918

Thomas (Tom) Thane McVittie was born in Barrie, Ontario on February 9, 1855. He acquired his education at Upper Canada College in Toronto, qualifying as a Dominion Land Surveyor. After several years of doing railroad work and township surveys in the east, he moved first to Calgary, Alberta, and then to Galbraith's Ferry (later called Fort Steele) where he went into a private business of land surveying. He and his brother Archie McVittie surveyed many of the East Kootenay townsites. Thomas was the more prolific of the two surveyors. Some of the work he surveyed included: the townsites of Fort Steele, Kimberley, Marysville, Vanamme, Palmerston, Swansea, and Fernie; and the mineral claims for the St. Eugene Mine, the Estella Mine, the North Star Mine, and the Sullivan Mine. Besides being a very busy surveyor, he took on many other community responsibilities. He was Justice of the Peace, a school trustee, a founding member of the Fort Steele Board of Trade, a founding member of the Fort Steele Mining Association, townsite agent, church warden, and secretary of the Conservative Association of the East Kootenays. In 1899, at the age of 44, Thomas McVittie married Anna Galbraith, niece of R. T. Galbraith. They lost an infant son in 1900 and had no other children. Mrs. McVittie died in 1916 at Fort Steele, and Thomas died in Edmonton in 1918. Thomas McVittie's house and surveying office still stand at Fort Steele. With generous help from the B.C. Surveyors Association the house and office were moved from their original location and placed on a permanent foundation within Fort Steele Heritage Town. They are used to interpret the life and importance of surveyors in the early development of this area.

Carlin, William, 1864-1932
MS 56 · Person · 1864-1932

William Carlin was born in Quebec and came to Golden, B.C., in 1885 to work in the lumber business. In 1893, Carlin and Joseph Lake purchased R.L.T. Galbraith's trading interests in Fort Steele. In 1895, Carlin took James Durick in as a partner in the Fort Steele venture and the store became known as Carlin and Durick, General Merchants. In 1911, the business became the Fort Steele Trading Company Ltd. and was the centre of Carlin's varied business interests. Carlin also had logging camps throughout the East Kootenay, operating under the name Carlin and Doyle Logging, and extensive mining interests. He was a member of the Fort Steele Mining Association and raised the capital for the establishment of Invicta Gold Mines on Wild Horse Creek and Kootenay (Perry Creek) Gold Mines. Carlin had extensive land holdings in the East Kootenay and in Vancouver and Victoria. He died in Cranbrook in 1932.

MS 56 (Salmon Arm Museum) · Person · 1879 - 1932

Mr. Eustace Claude Savile was born in England. He was educated in Bristol at Clifton College. He took his B.A. at Cambridge University. He spent time in a Swiss Sanitorium for his health and reportedly came to Canada for his health.

Mr. E.C. Savile and his wife arrived in Salmon Arm in 1910. He purchased forty acres from Mr. William Campbell in South Canoe. He contracted Gibbard and Boutwell to build a home for he and his wife.

Mr. Savile planted an orchard. While it was maturing, he decided to return to the practice of law and wrote the B.C. Bar Admissions in 1912. He opened an office in Salmon Arm, practicing as a solicitor. Later, by newspaper accounts, Savile also acted as a barrister.

During the winter months Savile commuted by horse and sleigh to Salmon Arm. The journey was difficult in winter time. When the orchard matured enough to produce, Savile sold the land and built a brick house near Bastion School.

Savile practiced law for twenty-two years. In his legal capacity he acted for the District of Salmon Arm. Mr. Savile was also well respected by the Kamloops Bar.

Savile's community service work was varied and included membership in the Board of Trade, treasurer of the library, honourary advisor to the hospital, president of the Salmon Arm Golf and Country Club, and a warden of St. John's Church.

Savile was a keen fisherman and drowned in a fishing accident at Little River near Adams River in 1932.