Henry Hudson Elementary

Henry Hudson Elementary School: (1911-2025)

by Eve Lazarus on March 29, 2025

Last week, I wrote a blog about the demise of Henry Hudson Elementary – the 1911 red brick building that housed generations of Vancouver school children. I asked you to share your stories, and many of you did.

Japanese Community:

Debra Kato’s grandmother (born in 1911 the same year the school opened) went to Henry Hudson Elementary with her brothers in the early 1920s. “She was one of the Japanese community that lived close by at Second and Burrard. My Grandmother’s elementary school teacher asked her and her brothers if she could give them English names. So her name, Shizue, became Alice. Her brother, Eizo, became George. Her other brother became Frank,” says Debra. “I didn’t realize that they were removing the old school. I walk by there often because I live in Kits. I will be sad when it’s finally all removed.”

The 1950s:

Laurie Watt’s writes: “I attended Henry Hudson School for kindergarten and grades 1 and 2, 1952-1955. We lived at 1827 Whyte Avenue on Kits Point. Strong memories include watching the older boys playing marbles in circles on the playground, watching films projected onto a large screen in the gym, and seeing a firemen’s demonstration of their very long ladder placed on the south exterior wall of the school. HHS had an academic award system called HH Topper – I won an HH Topper badge in grades 1 and 2, the same years my brother Norm won it in grades 4 and 5.”

From Klint Burton: “Thank you for your blog and posts. My 76-year-old mother texted me from Gabriola Island, super early today, about 1:30 am with the message: ‘Henry Hudson is being torn down!’ My father kissed her on the Henry Hudson School playground circa 1954, both in grade 3. They married in 1966. My dad passed in 2021.”

The 1960s:

Says Heather Fullager: “I went to Henry Hudson for Kindergarten in 1960. That’s me right behind the Henry in the sign and in front of the twins. My mom had already bought me a tunic to wear in preparation for grade one.”

The 1970s:

“I taught Music and Grades 4 to 7 at Henry Hudson from September 1969 to June 1976. My best years of teaching – most memorable in many ways, were at Hudson. Every year we put on a school music event—Oliver, Wizard of Oz, Music Through the Decades, and all grades were involved. I am sad to see the building go—somehow bricks and mortar supply the needed ‘grounding’ for an elementary education. Memories and photos live on, thank goodness. Miss Burt/Mrs. Perdue, now Kathy Anderson.”

From the strap to tie-dye:

“I attended Henry Hudson from the start of kindergarten in 1965 to the end of grade 7 in 1972. At the start we had wooden desks in rows, the strap, and daily fingernail inspections. By the end we were wearing tie-dyed T-shirts and celebrating Earth Day! We had hot lunches cooked by volunteer mothers, visits by the dentist, and visits by the nurse to check us for lice. There was a girls basement and a boys basement for rainy day play. Our most beloved teacher was Miss Burt (later she became Mrs. Perdue),” says Michelle Netrval.

“She organized huge musical extravaganzas for us and taught us a weird little jingle to do percentages that I use to this day! In grade seven we were taught grammar by the strict librarian – we hated those classes, but she taught us so well that never again, even into university, did I ever have to pay attention to any more grammar lessons. Today I walked by the site of the school, and nothing was left but a pile of bricks. I asked a construction worker if he could bring me a brick, and he very sweetly obliged. It’s a bit misshapen and cracked and still has some mortar from 1911.”

The 1980s:

Andréa Coutu writes: “The Hudson daycare was the first out of school care, formed by 1970s moms who got jobs after Molson lost a case. The City’s first hot lunch program was at Hudson, after women in the area were called to work for the war. I think it also had the first City-funded community playground, recognizing the needs of inner-city kids around 1980. The school was always very multicultural and had a wide socioeconomic profile. Many of the dock and mill workers lived in the area. The school was built on a former marsh, pond and creek and, to my understanding, was very important to the First Nations people in the area, including those forced on to a barge and left adrift in the harbour.”

Andrea Nicholson writes: “Hudson was unique in that it was a test site for a ridiculous rubberized paint that was being tried in the USA at the time. If you notice from the (demolition photos) they are uncovering two colours of bricks which made Hudson unique. They’d been hiding behind the red rubber paint material that had stopped the ability for the building to breathe and it rotted from the inside out. Some walls were mush inside.”

The Lights:

“Decades ago a 12-year-old boy rode on my Arbutus bus. He loved the buses and became a friend. His father was Billy Cowsill, of the Cowsills singing group from the 1960s. “The Rain, The Park and Other Things” and “Hair” were big hits,” says Angus McIntyre. “I met Billy and his mother – they lived in Kits and Del (named after Billy’s friend Del Shannon) went to Henry Hudson school. Del led a campaign to save the incandescent lights in the classrooms – they survived for a few years.”

And, it’s out with the old…

And, in with the new…..

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Tags Henry Hudson Elementary

RIP Henry Hudson Elementary School

by Eve Lazarus on March 15, 2025

Last chance to try and snag a brick or two before the 1911 Henry Hudson Elementary School in Kitsilano is just a distant memory. Demolition of the red brick building started Thursday.

The Namesake:

Since it’s out with the old, I’m wondering if a name change was considered for the new school? Henry Hudson, it turns out, was a 17^th century English navigator and explorer who never visited Vancouver. He disappeared after a mutiny in 1611 and was presumed dead. Apart from his total lack of connection to the city—the closest he came to Vancouver was Hudson Bay in northeastern Canada, roughly 4,700 km away—he’s not exactly the kind of role model I’d want for my kids.

According to Britannica: “As a commander, Hudson was more headstrong than courageous. He violated his agreement with the Dutch and failed to suppress the 1611 mutiny. He played favourites and let morale suffer.”

Rifle champions:

I couldn’t find out much about the history of Henry Hudson Elementary. Vancouver is Awesome wrote up an article in June 2012 when the school was celebrating its centennial. It said that during the First World War, Henry Hudson students earned the title of city rifle champions (1915 and 1916). The team included Nat Bailey who would go on to baseball and White Spot, and Hugh Matthews, the son of Vancouver’s first archivist Major Matthews.

Copies of my new book, Beneath Dark Waters: The Legacy of the Empress of Ireland Shipwreck, are available through my publisher Arsenal Pulp Press, or preorder from any independent bookstore across Canada

Babes in the Woods:

Derek and David D’Alton, the two little boys who were murdered in Stanley Park in the 1940s and identified as the Babes in the Woods in February 2022, attended Henry Hudson Elementary in the mid 1940s.

The Little Yellow School House:

Some of you will remember the little yellow school house that sat beside the soon-to-gone school building. It was built in 1912 as a Manual Training School. Google tells me that was a school that focussed on training in trades like carpentry and metal work.

Instead of being tossed in the landfill to make way for a new school, it is now part of the Chief Joe Mathias Centre on North Vancouver’s Capilano Road where children learn the Squamish Nation’s language Sḵwx̱wú7mesh sníchim.

If you went to Henry Hudson Elementary I’d love to hear your stories!

Our missing heritage buildings

Tags Babes in the Woods, Chief Joe Mathias Centre, Del Cowsill, Derek D'Alton, Henry Hudson, Henry Hudson Elementary, Hugh Matthews, Major Matthews, Nat Bailey, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh sníchim, White Spot

Still Unsolved: Babes in the Woods, 70 Years Later

by Eve Lazarus on January 12, 2023

Seventy years ago this week, two tiny skeletons were found in Stanley Park and quickly became known as the Babes in the Woods. Last February, they were identified through genetic genealogy as Derek and David D’Alton aged 7 and 6 when they were murdered in 1947.

This is an excerpt from my new book Cold Case BC: The Stories Behind the Province’s Most Intriguing Murder and Missing Person Cases

By the second week of February 2022, I was able to confirm with two different sources that the VPD had the names of the Babes in the Woods. This was huge, but it was all I had—the police weren’t releasing any more information at that point. Then a young lady named Ally contacted me and said that a Vancouver Police detective had been to see her mother, Cindy. The detective had given Cindy the devastating news that her uncles, Derek and David D’Alton, were murdered probably in 1947 and that they were the infamous Babes in the Woods.

Derek and David D'Alton — David and Derek Reimagined by Kat Thorsen, 2022 from Cold Case BC

Babes in the Woods:

Neither Ally nor her mother had heard the story of the Babes in the Woods. When Ally went online to do some research, she came across my podcast. Ally sent me photos that she’d scanned from the family album. It was incredible to put faces to these two little boys. There was a school photo from Henry Hudson Elementary in Kitsilano taken around 1946 or 1947 showing Derek, the older brother, a smiling little blond boy. There were a few photos of David, who had dark hair and features, with his older sister, Diane, and there were some with David and his mother, Eileen, and her twin sister, Doreen. There are houses in the background, one of them probably being the address the family lived at in Kitsilano during that period. Over that weekend, I worked with Ally to put together a story for my blog Every Place Has a Story.

Missing:

Ally’s mother, Cindy, was in her early twenties when she first heard that she had two missing uncles. It was back in the early 1980s, and she was looking at photos in the family album of her mother with two boys—probably the same photos Ally had sent to me. Cindy asked her mother, Diane, what had happened to her brothers, but she refused to talk about it. she would just cry.

Eventually Cindy was told that the family had been very poor, and Derek and David had been taken away by child protection services because their mother couldn’t provide for them. Diane had remained with her mother. Later, she told Cindy stories of having to jump out of the windows of places where they were living when the landlord came looking for his rent.

Arbutus Street Babes in the Woods — 1535 Arbutus Street where Eileen lived with Diane, Derek and David in 1946. Mark Dunn photo, 2022

Genetic Genealogy:

Shortly before Diane died in 2020, Cindy wanted to find out more about her ancestry, so she took a swab from her mother and sent it off to MyHeritage. She discovered that Eileen’s father was Métis. Cindy’s daughter, Ally, then decided to search for her great-uncles, hoping to find them still alive or, if not, their children or grandchildren. She sent her own DNA to 23andMe.

When detectives paid Cindy a visit earlier this year, they told her that they couldn’t find any records to indicate that the boys were taken into the custody of child protection services, as she had been told. They said they would keep looking.

Kat Thorsen at the site where the Babes in the Woods skeletons were discovered in Stanley Park. Eve Lazarus photo, 2016

Police have always believed that the boys were killed by their mother, who covered them up with her coat. The problem that I have with this is that there were other family members who would have known the boys, or at least have been aware of their existence and of Eileen’s precarious financial situation. Why didn’t they help? And what about the fathers? Eileen’s children had at least two, possibly three fathers, who at the time of writing still hadn’t been identified. When asked at a media conference this February if the mother was still the prime suspect, Inspector Dale Weidman said, “I think we have to make that assumption, yes. She would definitely be a person of interest if this case had occurred today. Naturally we would be looking at the mother. Yes.”

But Cindy doesn’t believe that for a second. She says her grandmother, Eileen, was a lovely, gentle woman who babysat the kids, loved animals, and often seemed sad.

Eileen died in 1996 at age 78.

The Babes in the Woods have their Names Back
The Babes in the Woods Part 1 – Season 1, Cold Case Canada
The Babes in the Woods Part 2 – Season 1, Cold Case Canada
Cold Case Vancouver: The City’s Most Baffling Unsolved Murders
McCarter: the 20-year-old from Alabama who got the Babes in the Woods Case
Vancouver Sun February 15, 2022

Tags 1535 Arbutus Street, Babes in the Woods, David D'Alton, Derek D'Alton, Eileen D'Alton, Henry Hudson Elementary, Stanley Park

The Babes in the Woods have their names back

by Eve Lazarus on February 14, 2022

Since I write about history and cold cases, it’s not often I’ve get to break an actual news story. But thanks to a young woman named Ally who went searching for her Great Uncles—I can now tell you the names of the Babes in the Woods—the little boys whose skeletons were found in Stanley Park in 1953. Meet Derek and David D’Alton.

This episode is based on a chapter in my book Cold Case BC: the stories behind the province’s most sensational murders and missing persons cases

Doreen, Eileen’s fraternal twin is shown with David and possibly Derek, ca.1943

When Ally spit into a tube in 2020, she had no idea that her DNA would help to solve one of Vancouver’s oldest and coldest murder mysteries.

Ally was flicking through the family album one day when she discovered that she had two great uncles who she had never met. The older boy had blonde hair and blue eyes, and the younger had darker features. When Ally asked her grandmother Diane who they were, she found out they were Diane’s younger brothers David and Derek.

Taken by social services:

Twenty-six year old Ally, says the story handed down in the family was that the two little boys were taken away by social services because their mother Eileen who was of Metis heritage, was too poor to look after them. Diane remained with her mother. “I remember my mother sharing stories with me about her mother’s poverty and how they used to jump out of windows at places they were renting in Vancouver to avoid having to pay because they were just so poor,” says Ally.

But when Ally’s Mum Cindy pressed her mother Diane for more information, Diane would tell her: “we don’t talk about that” or “that’s in the past.”

Photos of Derek and David with the family. Diane holding David at right

Genetic Genealogy:

Cindy wanted to find out her mother’s genetic mix, so she took a swab from Diane, who was by then suffering from dementia, and sent it off to MyHeritage. Then Ally spit in a tube and sent it to 23AndMe—a genealogy database where people go to learn about their ancestry and locate lost relatives. She hoped to find her great uncles still alive, or at least trace their children or grandchildren.

Ally didn’t have the boy’s birth certificates or know the year they disappeared, but she knew that Diane was born in July 1937 and was the oldest and then came Derek and David. All three children attended Henry Hudson Elementary in Kitsilano.

Derek pictured top row, second from left at Henry Hudson Elementary in Kitsilano

Ally uploaded her DNA to Ancestry, MyHeritage and several other genealogy platforms. She hoped her DNA would lead her to her great uncles, instead, what she found was devastating.

Identified:

Last May, the Vancouver Police Department partnered with the BC Coroners Service and a Massachusetts-based forensic research firm, to try and identify the Babes in the Woods. Most of their remains had been cremated in the 1990s and only a few fragments were left. These tiny, very old and fragile bone fragments were sent to Lakehead University’s Paleo-DNA lab in Thunder Bay, Ontario. The lab successfully extracted DNA from the bone fragment of the older boy and sent that to a lab in Alabama for DNA genome sequencing. His DNA kit was uploaded to GEDmatch, and a team of forensic genetic genealogists began searching for living relatives.

Then, earlier this month, Cindy was approached by a VPD detective who told her that her uncles were the two skeletons that had been found in Stanley Park in 1953 and who were known for the next seven decades as the Babes in the Woods.

Their mother, Eileen Bousquet was born in Alberta, and as far as Cindy is aware all three of her children—Diane, Derek and David were born in Vancouver. Detectives told Cindy that they hadn’t found any records to indicate that the boys were taken into the custody of child protection services as she had been told, but they would continue searching.

Killed by mother?

Police have always believed that the boys were killed by their mother, who covered them up with her coat. But Cindy doesn’t believe that for a second. She says her grandmother was a lovely, gentle woman. “She was a huge animal lover, she babysat little kids. She was very sad because something had happened and I don’t know what it was because nobody wanted to talk about it.”

Eileen died in 1996 at age 78.

Ally says her grandmother Diane didn’t know who her father was or who the fathers were of her half-brothers. “That’s something I’ve been trying to trace with Ancestry, but so far no luck,” she says. “Even though it came to a devastating resolution, at least we know what happened.”

The VPD have released the boys names as Derek (born Feb 27, 1940) and David D’Alton (born June 24, 1941). The police believe they were murdered in 1947 so Derek would have been 7 and David 6 when they were killed.
All photos courtesy Ally

Show Notes

Sponsors: Forbidden Vancouver Walking Tours

Music: Andreas Schuld ‘Waiting for You’

Intro : Mark Dunn

Sources:

News report courtesy CTV Vancouver

Huge thanks to Miles Steininger, Darlene Ruckle, and The History Five for all their help with the research