Eve Lazarus
This is an excerpt from Sensational Vancouver.
Eleanor Lum
Wayne Avery knew nothing about the history of his house until one day he saw an elderly Chinese woman peering through his front room window.
He invited her inside and discovered that she was Eleanor (Yip) Lum, and that she had been born in one of the bedrooms of his Strathcona house in 1928 by Nellie Yip Quong who later adopted her.
John Atkin can be a bit of a kill joy, always squashing rumours about secret tunnels in Chinatown, ghosts in the Dominion Building, and well, blood in Blood Alley. John squashes another rumour in his story about a tunnel that supposedly connected a sugar baron to a brothel, but in doing so he uncovered some fascinating information about Maxine MacGilvray, a successful businesswoman who moved to Vancouver in 1914.
It’s been incredibly exciting seeing Sensational Vancouver claim the top spot on the Best of BC list for the past four weeks, and it’s made me pay close attention to the book section in the Vancouver Sun.
What I’ve noticed is that M. Wylie Blanchet’s The Curve of Time, has ranked in the top 10 on the National Bestsellers list for the past seven weeks.
The gorgeous woman pictured on the cover of Sensational Vancouver and featured in my chapter on Legendary Women is Tosca Trasolini. Tosca was a member of the Flying Seven, Canada’s first all-female aviators’ club. The club formed in 1935—the year she turned 24—after Margaret Fane—one of the Flying Seven flew to California to meet with Amelia Earhart, president of the Ninety-Nines—an American organization for women pilots.
Asayo is thought to be Canada’s last picture bride–an early version of the mail order bride.
To mark the anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, this week’s blog is a story about Mabel Fortune Driscoll who survived the disaster, moved to Victoria and lived there until her death in 1968. The full story appears in Sensational Victoria.
Mabel Helen Fortune was 23 when she set off for a tour of Europe with her father Mark, mother Mary, younger brother, and two older sisters.
Barbara Howard received a Queen’s Jubilee Medal last week at Burnaby City Hall.
Barbara turns 93 this year, and in the last couple of years she’s been festooned with a slew of honours including induction into both the Burnaby and the BC Sports Hall of Fame and a “Freedom of the Municipality” award from Belcarra Council, where she owns a cottage.
Five amazing women who put their stamp on BC in unique ways. There is more information about them in At Home with History, Sensational Victoria and Sensational Vancouver, and in the books listed below.
Capi Blanchet (1891–1961)
Capi Blanchet was found dead in 1961, slumped over her typewriter while writing a sequel to The Curve of Time.
