harry jerome

When Harry met Percy

by Eve Lazarus on May 29, 2021

Percy Williams held onto his record for the 200-metre dash for 32 years—when Harry Jerome set a new record in 1959. Bill Cunningham photo, Province, May 30, 1959

Harry Jerome and Percy Williams were two of the most remarkable sprinters in Vancouver’s history.

This story is from Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History

Former Province sports reporter Brian Pound tells me that the first time the two officially met was at a photo shoot that he had set up at a clothing store near the insurance office where Percy worked. “Harry broke Percy’s long time 200 yard record and just missed his 100 yard mark,” says Brian. “The photo of the two of them was taken by famed Province photographer Bill Cunningham. They are holding my story of the meet.”

Harry breaks record:

Harry broke Percy’s 200-yard mark set three decades ago at the 1959 Vancouver and District Inter-High meet.

Harry is well known—his name adorns recreation centres and his statue is in Stanley Park. And at one time he was the fastest man alive, setting a total of seven world records, Percy, who before Harry came along was the fastest man alive, remains a bit of an enigma. In these days of super-charged Olympic athletes, he was truly unique.

Percy Williams was 18 when he was “discovered” while attending King Edward High School. Shown here in 1928 CVA-99-3638

Grew up in Mount Pleasant:

Percy Williams was born in 1908 and spent a good chunk of his life on West 12^th Avenue in Mount Pleasant. He was a scrawny kid, standing just 5’6” and weighing 110 pounds. He had a bad heart from childhood rheumatic fever

Percy’s coach, Bob Granger, told a reporter that he took Percy on after he tied a race with his sprint champion in 1926. “It violated every known principle of the running game,” he said. “He ran with his arms glued to his sides. It actually made me tired to watch him.” Granger had interesting training techniques. His idea of a warm-up was having Percy lie on the dressing table under a pile of blankets. Another was making him run flat out into a mattress propped up against a wall. Unorthodox maybe, but Percy kept winning.

Brings home Olympic medals:

By 1928, Percy had bulked up to 125 pounds. That was the year he brought home two gold medals for the 200 and 100 metre sprints at the Amsterdam Olympics. The newspapers dubbed him “Peerless Percy,” and he returned to Vancouver to a welcome from 40,000 people. Kids got the day off school and one firm brought out an “Our Percy” chocolate bar.

Percy was a reluctant star, and when a leg injury ended his track career in 1932, he seemed relieved. He told a reporter: “Oh, I was so glad to get out of it all.” By 1935, the public had forgotten all about him, and he soldered quietly on as an insurance salesman.

Percy held onto his record for the 200-metre dash for 32 years—when Harry Jerome set a new record in 1959. The tragedy was both men died in 1982. Harry, 42, from a brain aneurysm just eight days after Percy, suffering from arthritis, shot himself in the head in his West End bathtub.

In November 2012 friends and former students of Valerie Jerome dedicated a bench in her honour next to her brother Harry’s statue in Stanley Park. Photos courtesy Valerie Jerome

Tags harry jerome, Percy Williams, valerie jerome

Documenting Local History

by Eve Lazarus on February 8, 2020

It wasn’t easy getting a seat at the West Vancouver Library last Wednesday night. The West Van Historical Society presented Local Voices: Shooting the North Shore with Ralph Bower, retired Vancouver Sun photographer and Mike Wakefield, who also recently retired from a 35-year photography career with the North Shore News.

Mike Wakefield, Lynn Brockington West Van librarian, Laura Anderson moderator and Ralph Bower. Eve Lazarus photo

The place was packed. I found myself sitting next to former Vancouver Sun and NSN columnist Trevor Lautens, behind former Sun business reporter Alan Daniels, and in front of Peter Speck, the founder of the NSN.

I can’t say I worked with Ralph when I was at the Sun in the ‘90s, but when I did a search of my stories, I see Ralph had photographed a couple of them. And, as I research my current book Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History, I keep coming across photos that Ralph shot. Ralph started at the Vancouver Sun in 1955, and he brought along the camera he worked with—a Speed Graphic that held 10 negatives. He was still there—just—in 1996 when the Sun bought six digital cameras for $20,000 a pop, and in doing so, wiped out film.

Ralph Bower with a Speed Graphic Camera. Mike Wakefield photo

Ralph and Mike are local North Shore boys, born, bred and stayed. Ralph in Queensbury and Mike in Lynn Valley.

Both were asked to share five of their favourite photos. Ralph chose a Canucks game in 1970 when he was the first photographer to place a camera in the net; his friend Harry Jerome at Empire Stadium in 1962, Muhammad Ali, the 1958 Second Narrows Bridge disaster, and a horrifying photo of a knife wielding man dangling his tiny son from a third-floor balcony.

This photo of a knife-wielding man dangling his son from a third floor window won Ralph Bower a National Newspaper Award in 1986

Mike chose a photo of kite surfers at Ambleside which he took moments before falling down the rocks and breaking his camera. There’s a beautiful shot of the top of the Lions Gate Bridge peaking out from under the fog; one of dozens of people snapping phone shots of the Vancouver Aquarium releasing seals at Cates Park, a fascinating study of award winning film students at Carson Graham Secondary, and Jim Burton and his wife Susan.

Harry Jerome ties world record in the 100-yard dash at Empire Stadium in 1962. Ralph Bower photo

“The best photo I’ve ever taken, I probably had the least to do with it,” said Mike. It was Jim Burton’s 101^st birthday and he was being awarded France’s Legion of Honour for his service in the First World War. Burton wanted Susan, his wife of 70 years in the photo. Susan had Alzheimer’s, so they went to the care unit. Burton helped Susan into a chair and combed her hair. Susan gripped his hand and smiled. Burton kissed his wife’s hair. And Burton told Mike “We are ready for our photo.”

Jim and Susan Burton. Mike Wakefield photo

He’d already taken it.

“Sometimes it’s skill,” says Mike. “Sometimes it’s dumb luck.”

Tags harry jerome, Jim Burton, Laura Anderson, Mike Wakefield, Muhammad Ali, North Shore News, Peter Speck, Ralph Bower, Susan Burton, Vancouver Sun, West Vancouver Memorial Library

Black History Month: Valerie Jerome

by Eve Lazarus on February 1, 2015

Most people have heard of Harry Jerome. His name adorns recreation centres and his statue is in Stanley Park. At one time he was the fastest man alive, setting a total of seven world records. In 1970 he was made an officer of the Order of Canada. Fewer people remember his sister Valerie, yet she is just as amazing.

The following is an excerpt from Sensational Vancouver’s Legendary Women chapter.

Valerie Jerome had just turned seven when she moved with her family from Winnipeg to North Vancouver. Along with her sister Carolyn, 10, and brothers Harry, 11 and Barton, 6, they moved in across the road from Ridgeway Elementary.

Valerie still vividly remembers her first day at that school.

“It seemed like every kid in the school was lined up with rocks,” she says. “I can still remember the feeling of the first rock that hit my back as we ran.”

Valerie Jerome — Lyon Place, North Vancouver

Valerie doesn’t like to think much about those days, but every February, for more than a decade, she drove across the bridge from Vancouver, returned to her old elementary school and talked to the kids about those early days for Black History month.

She started by pointing to the house on Lyons Place where they lived, and where in 1953, fire broke out during the middle of the night when the sawdust burner caught fire. Valerie was sent to ask a neighbour to call the fire department, not because she was the oldest—she wasn’t—but because she was the whitest.

The family were left out on the street while the neighbours watched from behind their curtains.

“Nobody came out to help us. My mother was pregnant with my youngest sister and we finally got a cab to the Salvation Army Hall on Lonsdale,” says Valerie. The family spent the night on chairs on the sidewalk.

In 1954 the Jeromes bought a small rancher on East 17^th near their next school Sutherland Junior Secondary. Valerie worked in the school cafeteria at lunch time, rather than sit alone at a table or go home.

The year she turned 15 everything changed. She set Canadian records at the 1959 Canadian Track and Field National Championships in her running events, broke her age group record for long jump, and helped her team win the relay. She won bronze at the Pan American games in Chicago, and the following year, she joined her brother Harry to represent Canada at the Summer Olympics in Rome.

The media of the day called them the “dusky brother and sister athletes.”

Harry and Valerie Jerome at the airport. SFU Special Collections photo

“After I had been to the Olympics I was invited to eat with everybody,” she says. “We had a little bit of celebrity and somehow our brown skins turned white.”

The City of North Vancouver held a dance in their honour and gave them $500 each to spend.

Sport made everything bearable, she says.

“When the stopwatch gave you a great time, it didn’t matter what colour you were.”

Harry died from a brain aneurysm in 1982. He was 42.

Valerie went to university, became a teacher and taught in Vancouver for 35 years. She spent three decades as a track and field official. Valerie ran in eight elections for the Green Party, federally, provincially and civically. She did all that without any expectation of being elected, but as a way of getting green ideas out. “Nobody was talking about the environment at all in those days,” she says. Her son, Stuart Parker, led the BC Green Party from 1993 to 2000.

In November 2010 dozen of her former students gathered in Stanley Park to see a bench dedicated in her honour. It sits in Stanley Park right next to the statue of her brother Harry.

Tags Black History Month, harry jerome, Ridgeway Elementary, Sensational Vancouver, valerie jerome

Percy Williams: World’s Fastest Human

by Eve Lazarus on November 29, 2014

Percy Williams was the world’s fastest human for a time. In these days of super-charged Olympic athletes, he was truly unique.

The following is story is from Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History

Percy Williams, world's fastest human — 1928 Amsterdam Olympic Games, CVA 99-3633

King Edward High School:

There’s a young, very thin Percy Williams in a picture of the King Edward High School track team of 1926. Williams had taken up running two years earlier when his gym teacher noticed how much faster he was than the other boys his age and bullied him into joining the track team. Two years later, he brought home two gold medals from the Olympics and became a local hero.

Percy was born in 1908 and spent a good chunk of his life on West 12th Avenue in Mount Pleasant. He was a scrawny kid, standing just five foot six and weighing 110 pounds. He had a bad heart from childhood rheumatic fever.

He was 18 when he was “discovered” while attending King Edward High School.

Coach Bob Granger:

His coach, Bob Granger, later told a reporter that he took Percy on after he tied a race with his sprint champion in 1926. “It violated every known principle of the running game,” he said. “He ran with his arms glued to his sides. It actually made me tired to watch him.”

Granger had interesting training techniques. His idea of a warm up was having Percy lie on the dressing table under a pile of blankets. Another was making him run flat out into a mattress propped up against a wall.

Unorthodox maybe, but Percy kept winning.

By 1928, he’d bulked up to 125 pounds. That was the year he brought home two gold medals for the 200 and 100 metre sprints at the Amsterdam Olympics.

Olympic Hero:

The newspapers dubbed him “Peerless Percy,” and he returned to Vancouver to a welcome from 40,000 people. Kids got the day off school and one firm came out with an “Our Percy” chocolate bar.

He was a reluctant star, and when a leg injury ended his track career in 1932, he seemed relieved. He told a reporter: “Oh, I was so glad to get out of it all.”

By 1935, the public had forgotten all about him, and city directories show him working as a salesman for Armstrong and Laing. Later he ran an insurance business.

Percy held onto his record for the 200-metre dash for 32 years—when another Vancouver boy, Harry Jerome set a new record in 1959.

In 1982, suffering from arthritis, he shot himself in the head in his West End bathtub. He was 74.

Tags 196 West 12th Avenue, Bob Granger, harry jerome, Percy Williams

Black History Month: Barbara Howard

by Eve Lazarus on February 3, 2013

Barbara Howard lived at 2602 Nanaimo — CVA 371-1643 1938

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.

While the recognition is appreciated, it’s also more than 70 years overdue, and in the meantime Barbara has quietly lived her remarkable life until she was unearthed in time for the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Winter Games.

At 17, Barbara was one of the fastest female sprinters in the world. A student at Britannia High School, she competed at the 1938 British Empire Games in Sydney, Australia—the first black female athlete to represent Canada in international competition. It was the first time she’d been away from home, and in those days it took a month to sail Down Under.

Even so, Barbara brought home Silver and Bronze medals in relay events and came sixth in the 100-yard dash. She also became a bit of a celebrity in Australia, where black athletes were rare.

But the girl was devastated. She felt she’d let her country down.

“I went to Australia thinking I was supposed to get a Gold medal and I was so disappointed in myself,” she said.

Then the war came and dashed her dreams of competing on the Olympic stage. Instead she stayed home, studied teaching at the Vancouver Normal School and became the first black teacher hired by the Vancouver School Board, where she taught Grades 3 to 8 physical education classes, including eight years at Strathcona.

The Howard family lived at 10^th and Nanaimo in Grandview, and fortunately never experienced the racism that plagued Harry and Valerie Jerome in North Vancouver.

Barbara Howard — 2012 Inductee BC Sports Hall of fame

“I was brought up British,” she says. “There were English, and Irish and Scotch and one black family and we were all poor, but it was a close knit community.”

Barbara’s running ability exploded in Grade 6 at the nearby Laura Secord Elementary.

“When the principal rang the bell, I’d start running from home and I’d run, run, run,” she says. “In those days one of the teacher’s played the piano in the hall, and we’d march into Colonel Bogey March. Grade 1 would be first, then Grade 2, Grade 3, Grade 4, and I’m still running, then Grade 5 and I’m getting there at the end of the line. I was never late.”

Barbara has lived in North Burnaby since 1956. She never married and tells me it was because she was always “running too fast.”

Tags 1938 British Empire Games, 2602 Nanaimo, Barbara Howard, BC Sports Hall of Fame, Belcarra Council, Britannia High School, Burnaby City Hall, Burnaby Sports Hall of Fame, harry jerome, Laura Secord Elementary, Queen's Jubilee Medal, valerie jerome, Vancouver Normal School, Vancouver School Board

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