Jack Cash (1918-2005) started as a Vancouver Sun photographer in the 1930s. He spent most of his life in North Vancouver and went on to have an amazing career.
Jack Cash at Empire Pool UBC, 1955. NVMA # 10432
I first heard about Jack Cash when I was researching his mother Gwen Cash, who when she went to work for Walter Nichol at the Vancouver Daily Province in 1917, became one of the first female news reporter in the country. With the formidable Gwen as his mother, it’s not surprising that Jack also went into the newspaper business. He got his start as a staff photographer for the Vancouver Sun in the 1930s.
Jack Cash’s photo of his mother’s Trend House appeared in the August 1960 issue of Western Homes and Living. Courtesy NVMA
Lived in North Vancouver:
Jack, was born in 1918 and spent much of his life in North Vancouver, which makes him a great subject for the North Vancouver Museum and Archives latest exhibit. Through the Lens of Jack Cash, 1939-1970 opened this week at the Community History Centre in Lynn Valley, and comes on the heels of Women and Wartime, which is fitting because Jack started work for Burrard Dry Docks in 1939, first as an assistant pipefitter, and then as shipbuilding increased during the war years, as the official staff photographer.
Jack Cash photo, Courtesy NVMA
Commercial photographer:
Sam Frederick, the Archives & Community Engagement Intern, has put together a display that covers his work as a commercial photographer for the logging, shipping and building industries, as a landscape photographer and as an architectural photographer for Western Homes and Living. The photos of a farmer holding a chicken and a phone operator from 1956 are from the period he worked as a photographer for James Lovick Advertising Agency. There are photos of his Marine Drive studio, which he opened that year. It was a former butcher’s shop with a walk-in freezer that Jack used as his darkroom. He had a portrait shooting studio in the centre, and sold cameras and photography equipment up front.
Sam Frederick sorts through the Jack Cash Collection at NVMA. Cash’s photos line the top of the book shelf. Eve Lazarus photo
The Columbian:
In 1967, Jack and his wife Elva bought a 70-foot mission ship from the Anglican Church. They called it the Columbian and outfitted it with four passenger staterooms and two lounges and chartered trips to coastal resorts between Victoria and Alaska. “When I heard the Columbian was for sale, I mortgaged everything I had to buy it,” Jack told a Times Colonist reporter in November 1968.
Times Colonist photo, November 1968
Jack died in 2005. His obituary says: “Jack most recently celebrated his 87th birthday in his unique style by riding a Honda Gold Wing motorcycle.”
Page from Jack Cash’s customer log book, 1954. Courtesy NVMA
When Foncie Pulice was 21 in 1934, he quit house painting and went to work for Joe Iaci and his street photography company Kandid Kamera.
Foncie, to my knowledge, never crossed the bridge or took the ferry to North Vancouver—at least not for his work. He did capture many of our most colourful citizens. A street photographer who worked mostly on Hastings and Granville Streets, he photographed people out shopping, going to a show, or on their way to work.
He created over 15 million images with his home made camera.
Janet Turner has curated a small exhibition at the Community History Centre in Lynn Valley from photos from the collection.
Foncie photos aren’t dated unless the recipient writes on the back, so the time period is mostly a good guess, but that’s part of the fun.
Dorothy Lynas school board trustee (1958-1990) with friends Jennie Craig and Dorothy Girling, Fonds 168
Gertie Wepsala:
Gertie Wepsala was a Canadian Olympic Ski Champion. She married Al Beaton, a Sports Hall of Famer for the Canadian Olympic Basketball team in 1940 and 1941. Al helped develop Grouse Mountain Resorts and built the world’s first double chairlift from the top of Skyline Drive. He later managed Grouse Mountain. Both he and Gertie qualified for the Olympics, but the games were cancelled during the war years.
The Fromme sisters of Lynn Valley; NVMA Fonds 188
The Fromme Sisters:
There’s a photo of the three Fromme sisters—Vera, Julia and Margaret—spending a day on the town; one of a young Walter Draycott, and another of his friend Tom Menzies, the curator at the Museum of Vancouver in the ‘40s.
Walter Draycott, NVMA 26-8-32
Like the Fromme family, Draycott was a North Vancouver pioneer, he has a street named after him, and his statue sits in the little square at the corner of Lynn Valley Road and Mountain Highway.
Walter Draycott. Eve Lazarus photo, 2016
Marie Desimone:
Marie Desimone, a shipyard worker is captured on the way to catch the ferry to work at the Burrard Dry Dock.
Marie Desimone, NVMA 15766
Bette and Bob Booth:
Bette Booth is photographed with her husband Bob, an architect who built his own West Coast modern home near Capilano River. Bob worked on both the Burrard Dry Dock and Westminster Abbey in Mission.
Bob and Bette Booth,1946; NVMA BB-181
Jack Cash, a prolific photographer himself, and son of the formidable Gwen Cash, who appears in Sensational Victoria, is shown in a photo with his oldest son and wife Aileen (Binns).
Jennie and Eva Conroy; NVMA 1182-143
Jennie and Eva Conroy:
Eva and her sister Jennie Conroy are photographed shortly before Jennie’s murder in 1944.
When Foncie retired in November of 1979 he told a Province reporter that when he started as a 20-year-old back in 1934 there were six companies in Vancouver. Street photography, he said, really started to take off during the war. “At one time, I was taking 4,000 to 5,000 pictures every day,” he told the reporter.
Millions of photos were thrown out. “I’d keep them for a year, then throw them out. I realize now I should have saved them but it’s too late.”
Ever stood in front of an old house and wondered what went on inside those walls? Who lived there, how they lived their lives and what events happened behind the front door? I admit it’s a weird kind of voyeurism, but I’ve spent a lot of the last decade skulking around in people’s hedgerows asking those questions. Because in my view, a house has a genealogy, much like a person, and comes alive through the stories and mysteries that took place inside its walls.
Alice Munro, 1968
I’m fascinated by the deep connection people have to their houses. David Foster grew up with his six sisters in a modest house in Saanich that his father built. Spoony Sundher built a house on Bellevue Road before going on to open the Hollywood Wax Museum and found a family dynasty. Alice Munro wrote two of her best selling books from her Rockland house, and Susan Musgrave’s North Saanich house has a 190-foot Douglas Fir tree growing out of the living room. Susan says she doesn’t understand people who move into “key ready houses devoid of personality.”
I’ve talked to home owners who have unearthed everything from a murder in the family kitchen, to resident ghosts and celebrities. Others have found evidence of brothels and bootlegging, and one woman found that her house was once a Chinese sausage factory.
My father’s childhood home in Ballarat, Australia had its own odd history. My eccentric grandmother physically had the bedrooms lopped off the house when her children left home. I never found out why, but at least the current owners eventually learned who left them a number of doors that led nowhere.
I’m delighted that Sensational Victoria is getting a good reception with the locals. I hoped it would, but I really wrote it with mainlanders in mind, people like me who are not from there, but love the city, love history, old houses and Victoria’s quirky characters and eccentricities.
Clarence Street, James Bay
Emily Carr figures prominently in the book. That wasn’t intentional she just kept getting in my head, and I was intrigued with her Oak Bay cabin, a tiny house that she kept to herself for all those years. It’s Emily who shows readers what James Bay would have been like in 1913 and she shares another chapter with other formidable women from Victoria’s past. There’s a chapter on madams and their brothels, another on gardens, murders that span a century, haunted houses and some of the writers, entertainers and artists who come from Victoria.
Much of the information comes from their relatives and the current owners, who are all fiercely proud of their homes. They are the custodians—sometimes for just a few years, other times for decades—who add their own stories to the homes and in turn play a vital part in the ongoing story of Victoria.
Capi Blanchet was found dead in 1961, slumped over her typewriter while writing a sequel to The Curve of Time. For a writer, that’s not a bad way to go. The tragedy in Capi’s case is that she died without ever having an inkling of the success her book would enjoy. There was no way for her to know that a half century into the future, her book would be republished in a 50th-anniversary edition and be a regional best-seller.
Capi with Pam on the beach near her house. Courtesy Tara Blanchet
Born in Montreal, Muriel Liffiton married Geoffrey Blanchet, a banker when she was 18. In 1922 the family drove out west and bought Clovelly, a house designed by Samuel Maclure near Sidney. Soon after moving in, the Blanchets bought a boat called the Caprice. In 1927 Geoffrey took the boat out and never returned. That left 33-year-old Capi to raise five kids aged between two and 14, and to wonder if it was accident or suicide.
The resourceful Capi rented out her house, packed up her kids and Irish setter, and set off for what would be the family’s annual journey around British Columbia’s rugged coastline. The rent supplemented her income, and the trips provided the basis for her book.
Blanchet, M. Wylie. The Curve of Time (50th anniversary edition). Whitecap, 2011.
Gwen Cash (1891–1983)
Gwen Cash portrait by Myfanwy Pavelic appeared on the cover of Off the Record. Jack Cash photo.
When Gwen Cash went to work for Walter Nichol at the Vancouver Daily Province in 1917, she was one of the first women general reporters in the country. Gwen and her husband Bruce settled in Victoria in January 1935. She was the public relations officer for the Empress Hotel and wrote three books including her memoir, Off the Record. In 1954 she had John di Castri design a house to prove that small didn’t have to mean a box. Called the Trend House, it was one of 11 built in Canada and sponsored by BC forest industries to boost retail lumber, plywood, and shingle sales. At 835 sq.ft. Gwen’s house was the smallest, but also the most talked about. “Conventional Victorian viewers, addicted to pseudo-Tudor or modern box construction, were puzzled and vaguely angered by its unique design. Like modern painting it was something that they couldn’t understand,” she wrote. The house was opened to the public for three months and more than 34,000 people trekked through.
Cash, Gwen. Off the Record. Stagecoach, 1977.
Sylvia Holland (1900-1974)
Sylvia Holland at Disney in the 1940s. Courtesy Theo Halladay
Sylvia Holland met her Canadian husband at architectural school in London, England. They moved to Victoria in 1925 and designed their house. Two years later Frank was dead and Sylvia was left to raise two babies on the eve of the Depression. To make ends meet, Sylvia rented out her house and moved to Metchosin, where Frank’s parents had a farm. Even during those lean times, she managed two architectural commissions. When Boris was diagnosed with the same infection that had killed his father, Sylvia moved to Los Angeles and was hired by Universal Studios and then by MGM as a background artist. Walt Disney hired her as one of his first women animators, and she worked on productions such as Fantasia and Bambi. She worked for Disney for several years, bought an acre of land in the San Fernando Valley and designed a large two-storey house where she set about developing the Balinese breed of cat. She never married again. “All the single guys at Disney were courting her, but she chose to retain her independence,” says her daughter Theo. “She said, ‘If I had a man, what would I do with him?’”
Nellie McClung (1873-1951)
Nellie McClung in th garden of her Ferndale Road home ca1949. Courtesy Saanich Archives
When Nellie retired to Gordon Head in 1935 and made sauerkraut and dill pickles from her garden, few neighbours realized how famous she was until her image came out on a 1974 postage stamp. Nellie fought for women’s rights and her accomplishments are long and awe inspiring. In 1900 a woman’s salary was legally the property of her husband. He had control of their children, and of her. The law defined an eligible voter as “a male person, including an Indian and excluding a person of Mongolian or Chinese race.” And, if that wasn’t clear enough; the Election Act went on to say: “No woman, idiot, lunatic or criminal shall vote.”
Nellie raised five kids in rural Manitoba. By 1908, she had written the first of 16 books. That novel, Sowing Seeds in Danny sold over 100,000 copies—outselling Lucy Maud Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables, which came out the same year—in a country where 5,000 is still considered a best-seller.
In 1928, she was one of five women who went to the Supreme Court of Canada to insist women are “persons,” and eligible to be named to the Senate. She campaigned for the Liberals in 1935, was the first woman to sit on the CBC board of directors the following year, and in 1938, represented Canada in 1938 at the League of Nations in Geneva.
McClung, Nellie. The Complete Autobiography. Broadview Press, 2003.
Helen Gregory MacGill (1864-1947)
Helen was the first woman to graduate from Toronto’s University of Trinity College, and she was the first woman judge in B.C. From 1917 she presided over Vancouver’s Juvenile Court, fighting for the rights of women and children. Her husband was a sketchy lawyer and their finances went up and down with the times. The MacGill’s bought a house in Vancouver’s West End in 1908, and lost it five years later when they couldn’t afford the taxes.
By 1926 Helen’s judge’s salary had increased to $100 a month, she received $3,000 in damages from an accident settlement and they bought back the Harwood Street house. The house withstood the apartment blitz of the 1950s and is a strata conversion painted a regal red.
The MacGill’s younger daughter Elsie (1905-1980) became a trend setter like her Mum. She was the first woman to receive an electrical degree in Canada and the first woman aircraft designer in the world. She earned the name “Queen of the Hurricanes” for her work on the Hawker Hurricane fighters during the Second World War.
MacGill, Elsie Gregory. My Mother the Judge. Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1955.
The Trend House at 4342 Skyline Drive in North Vancouver has just sold for $1,375,000.
The house was one of 11 built in 1954 for Ted and Cora Backer, designed by Porter & Davidson Architects, and sponsored by BC forest industries to boost retail lumber, plywood and shingle sales in the province.
The house needs love. What was once wood (and may still be underneath) has been carpeted over, wallpapered and dry walled. It’s looking tired and in need of an update. But at 2,472 sq.ft. it’s still a good sized family home with a dramatic split level open concept plan, sweeping vaulted ceilings, and floor-to-ceiling glass.
4342 Skyline Drive, North Vancouver
Originally the exterior cedar shiplap was painted gunmetal black with terra cotta trim. At the time, the house was a showroom for modern conveniences—the latest thermostatic temperature control, remote control touch-plate lighting, copper plumbing and fibreglass insulation.
When Gwen Cash went to work for Walter Nichol at the Vancouver Daily Province in 1917, she was one of the first women general reporters in the country.
Gwen met Emily Carr when she was sent to Victoria by the Province to interview a woman writer boarding at The House of All Sorts on Simcoe Street. “Frankly I don’t remember much about the visit except that there were all sorts of odd things strung up in the ceiling and I was fascinated and a little scared of Emily,” she writes in Off the Record. Gwen and her husband Bruce settled in Victoria in 1935 and Gwen got to know the artist when when she was public relations officer for the Empress Hotel and Emily lived on Beckley Street.
She wrote three books including her memoir, Off the Record.
Gwen Cash portrait by Myfanwy Pavelic appeared on the cover of Off the Record, 1977. Jack Cash photo, Courtesy Derek Cash
Commissions the Trend House:
In 1954, Gwen had John di Castri design a house to prove that small didn’t have to mean a box. Called the Trend House, it was one of 11 built in Canada and sponsored by BC forest industries to boost retail lumber, plywood, and shingle sales.
At 835 sq.ft. Gwen’s house was the smallest, but also the most talked about. “Mine was the smallest of the trend houses but the most talked and written about. Conventional Victorian viewers, addicted to pseudo-Tudor or modern box construction, were puzzled and vaguely angered by its unique design. Like modern painting it was something that they couldn’t understand” she wrote. The house was opened to the public for three months and more than 34,000 people trekked through.
Trend house photo by Jack Cash appeared in Western Homes and Living August 1960. Courtesy Derek Cash
Lady:
Derek Cash remembers staying at Trend House he was a small boy. He was fascinated by his outspoken and flamboyant grandmother and remembers her dressing in bright clothes with lots of scarves, hats and danging jewellery. She also had her three grandchildren call her “lady.”
Trend House, 3516 Richmond Road, Victoria 2011. Eve Lazarus photo
“I don’t think she really liked being thought of as a grandmother,” says Derek. “We did not call her grandma. We were told to call her “Lady.” At the time it was a name just like nanny. It wasn’t until we got older that we realized it sounded funny.”
After Gwen sold in 1967, the second owner added two rooms and a sun porch.
The other trend houses are in Halifax, Montreal, Toronto, London, Winnipeg, Regina and Edmonton. There’s also one at 4342 Skyline Drive, North Vancouver, designed by Porter & Davidson Architects. Michael Kurtz owns the Calgary trend house.
