Eve Lazarus
The Flying Seven formed in 1935 and were Vancouver’s all-female aviators’ club
Vancouver’s aviatrices:
This is one of my favourite photos. It ran with a story in Sensational Vancouver and shows six members of the Flying Seven posed in front of the rocket ship at Vancouver International Airport. The Flying Seven were Vancouver’s all-female aviators’ club.
It’s been a couple of years since I’ve done a roundup of my favourite history blogs. To make the list, the blog had to be written by an individual, come out fairly regularly and have a strong Vancouver flavour.
In alphabetical order:
John Atkin and Andy Coupland started the blog just after their book of the same name was published in 2010.
When David Rowland heard that Woodward’s was closing in 1993, he phoned up the manager and put in an offer for the department store’s historic Christmas windows. They agreed on a price, and David became the proud owner of six semi-trailer loads of animated teddy bears, elves, geese, children, a horse and cart and various storefronts.
Monday November 25 is International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. This is an excerpt from Sensational Victoria: Bright Lights, Red Lights, Murders, Ghosts & Gardens.
Doug Guyatt was cleaning up the front yard of his Colwood home one afternoon in June 1992 when he found his wife’s severed head in a bag in the ditch.
Irving House was built in 1865 in New Westminster by Captain John Irving. He died in 1872, but never really left.
This is an excerpt from my book At Home with History: The Secrets of Greater Vancouver’s Heritage Homes.
Irving House is built in the Gothic Revival style and overlooks the Fraser River on what’s now busy Royal Avenue in New Westminster.
Can’t let Asian Heritage Month go by without a nod to Mary and Walter Chan, the Strathcona activists who helped keep the bulldozers at bay and rallied the community to preserve not only Chinatown, but a big chunk of our city’s culture and heritage.
Chan family outside 658 Keefer ca.1968.
The Vancouver Heritage House tour is coming up Sunday June 2, and I haven’t been this excited since Casa Mia was featured in 2014. Don’t get me wrong, the VHF works hard all year to curate a great mix of architectural styles, neighbourhoods and house sizes, but unless you work at, or have a daughter at Crofton House School, you likely won’t get inside the Old Residence.
There’s been a lot about laneway houses in the media over the last couple of years. Loosely defined, it’s a legal way of plonking down a small house in your backyard, and depending on your point of view, either exploiting or helping to ease the current rental squeeze.
Laneway houses have to be under 1,000 square feet.
