James Johnstone

Paul Yee’s Vancouver Archives

by Eve Lazarus on March 23, 2019

About six years ago, I was doing some research for my book Sensational Vancouver and took a tour of Strathcona with James Johnstone. I was excited to meet Paul Yee, a historian who now lives in Toronto, and has written several brilliant books which include Salt Water City, Tales from Gold Mountain, and most recently, A Superior Man (see Paul’s website for a full list).

Paul Yee outside his childhood house at 540 Heatley Street in 2013. Eve Lazarus photo

Paul told me that he lived in three different houses in Strathcona between 1960 and 1974.

“I was an orphan,” he said. “When whole blocks of houses around me were demolished, I felt like I was being shoved onto a stage for the world to see all the shame that came from living in a slum. Even as a child, I knew Vancouver had better neighbourhoods. I was embarrassed to tell people my address, show others my library card.”

Paul’s first address was 350 ½ East Pender Street. The house is long gone, and the ½ refers to a smaller house that stood at the rear of the main residence, he says. The family left in 1968 to live above the Yee’s family store at 263 East Pender, and in 1971 they moved to 540 Heatley Street. Later, the Yee’s moved east into the Grandview Woodlands Neighbourhood.

200 Block East Hastings in 1986, from the Paul Yee Fonds, Courtesy CVA 2008-010.0523

Paul, was amazed at how much Strathcona had changed “When I walk through Strathcona now, what really hits me is how green and lush it is. The place is now respectable, unlike when I lived there,” he said.

This week, Vancouver Archives announced that thanks to funding from the Friends of the Vancouver City Archives, they have now digitized 3,700 photos that the Yee family donated in 2014. Many are Paul’s own photos, and there are also oral interviews online from the ‘70s and ‘80s with Chinese Canadian seniors and community members. You can read more about it on their great blog AuthentiCity.

A racist poster from UBC in 1987. Courtesy Paul Yee Fonds and CVA 2008-010.1762

Many of the historical photos that you see in our books and on the many Facebook pages that are about “old” Vancouver, including my own Every Place has a Story, come from Vancouver Archives, and it’s all free of charge. It’s an incredible resource, and if you become a member of the Friends of the Vancouver Archives, your money goes to digitizing more of these records.

Arrival of Chinese Statesman Li Hung-Zhang at the CPR dock at the foot of Howe Street in 1896. Courtesy Paul Yee Fonds and CVA 2008-010.4121

Personally, I’m looking forward to the AGM on March 31 with guest speaker Ron Dutton. Ron started the BC Gay and Lesbian Archives in 1976, and he recently donated over 750,000 posters, sound recordings, photographs, magazines and clippings to the Archives.

Tags 540 Heatley Street, BC Gay and Lesbian Archives, Friends of the Vancouver Archives, James Johnstone, Paul Yee, Paul Yee fonds, Ron Dutton, Salt Water City, Sensational Vancouver, Vancouver Archives

Take a Walk on the Wild Side

by Eve Lazarus on August 16, 2013

History walk with James Johnstone — James Johnstone on tour in Strathcona

I first met James Johnstone about 12 years ago when I was writing a series of magazine articles that looked at the idea that a house has a social history or a genealogy much like a person. The idea eventually morphed into At Home with History and James gave me research tips, loaned me books, shared information, took me on a walking tour of Strathcona and gave me a ton of encouragement. Just for fun, I jumped on one of his tours last Saturday.

If Chuck Davis was Mr. Vancouver, then James Johnstone should be Mr. East End, because no one knows the area better.

James is a house researcher who lives in Strathcona. Over the last decade he has researched the history of 900 odd Vancouver houses, and now he leads walking tours of the East End, the West End and Mount Pleasant.

If you haven’t visited Strathcona, and I’m amazed at how many people haven’t, it’s a gem of an area nestled in between the Downtown Eastside and Chinatown. This puts a lot of people off, but it shouldn’t, the neighbourhood is an amazing stretch of 19^th and 20^th century architecture. Small cottages, brightly coloured Queen Annes with gingerbread trim, Arts and Crafts and Edwardians have gardens that spill out onto the sidewalk. Then there are the tall skinny houses squeezed onto 25-foot-lots, while others sit high above the street reached by steep stairs.

It’s a lesson in how density can work in a neighbourhood without resorting to high-rise towers.

827 East Georgia Street — Home of Nora Hendrix 1938-1952

We started at East Hastings and Heatley and took a look at a commercial block that the city wanted to pull down and make into a new library. The neighbourhood does want a new library thanks, but not at the expense of a heritage building. This is the neighbourhood that stopped destructive development in the 1960s and time and new recruits have just made them more passionate about their heritage—which is as colourful as the houses—a story of Japanese, Jewish, Russian, Italian and Chinese immigration.

Walking tour with James Johnstone — Keefer Street

James punctuates each story with archival pictures to give a kind of then and now flavour. But the best part of the tour for me were the home owners. Joy, a third generation Italian homeowner came out and told us about her Keefer Street house. Her grandmother was arrested for bootlegging in the ‘50s and Joy remembers stomping grapes in the basement in her rubber boots.

We walked past the East Georgia Street gun battle where in 1917, Malcolm Mclennan, the chief of police, died from a gunshot to the face by a drug dealer, and where a little boy was killed in the street. And, when we stopped outside a former bootlegging house on Union Street, the home owners invited the entire group inside for a tour.

You’ll learn about a bunch of fascinating people that rarely make the history books. There’s the houses of Nellie Yip Quong, Tosca Trasolini, a Vancouver version of Amelia Earhart, and Angelo Branca, a former supreme court judge. You’ll wind your way through what was once Hogan’s Alley as well as the fascinating back alleys of Strathcona.

Former Bootlegger's house on Union Street — 446 Union Street

For more information on the tours see History Walks in Vancouver

Tags Angelo Branca, Chuck Davis, James Johnstone, Malcolm Mclennan, Nellie Yip Quong, Strathcona, Tosca Trasolini

Wanted: Past Residents for a 100th Birthday Bash

by Eve Lazarus on July 23, 2013

Nikki Renshaw is throwing a party to celebrate her house’s 100^th birthday. But first she wants to invite as many former residents, owners and relatives as she can find. Thanks to help from uber house detective James Johnstone she already knows their names, but she’s having trouble tracking people who had a connection to her Kitsilano digs prior to the ’70s.

1913 Arts and Crafts House — Looking for past residents of 3209 West 5th Avenue

Over the years the Renshaws have uncovered bits and pieces of their house’s past. The King George V playing cards behind the kitchen wall, old photos under the floor boards, names carved into the basement chimney and dozens of empty bottles of booze buried in the garden.

It wasn’t always a happy house and at least one of the former inhabitants has stayed.

“There’s been adultery, divorce, drink, destitution, mental breakdowns and of course, the odd death,” says Nikki, a former radio personality who now designs luxury bedding.

3209 West 5th Avenue, Vancouver — 3209 West 5th Avenue

Originally, from London, England, Nikki and Chris bought the house in 1998 and put it through a massive renovation. It likely upset the ghost who made his or her presence known by brushing past them on the stairs. Chris, a set designer, would yell “It’s only me” on entering the house. Glasses and other small items would disappear. Lights turned on and off. The bed shook so hard that Nikki would check for seismic activity. There wasn’t any.

In one of those freaky connection things that happen when you’re investigating old houses, Denise, a friend Nikki knew from London, grew up next door. Denise’s friend Laura Finlayson had lived in the Renshaw’s house during the 60s and 70s. When Laura came to visit she asked Nikki if the ghost was still on the landing.

Nikki has a couple of ideas who it might be.

There’s Catherine Dickson, the first home owner who drank herself to death. Laura’s Aunt Jean was hit by a tram on Fourth Avenue and died in the upstairs bedroom.

It’s a lovely old arts and crafts house with its old fir floors and stained glass windows—one of the originals in the area in a neighbourhood that’s rapidly depleting its heritage stock.

Nikki says that’s one reason she wants to have this celebration. Once teen daughter Olivia goes off to university, they’ll be downsizing, and she’s worried that the house will transform into a duplex, or worse.

“This neighbourhood has changed so much since we moved in. It’s this high density neighbourhood now. Every house in this road that gets bought gets ripped down,” she says. “I just want there to be the story of all the people who lived here so there is some kind of community to this house.”

Nikki has contacted the Stockholder family, the Finlayson’s and the Greggs. But if you know any of these people or their descendants, please leave a note here or on my Facebook page or send an email and I’ll pass it along to Nikki.

Past residents of 3209 West 5^th Avenue, Vancouver:

Owners

James Arthur Bruce (Builder) 1912/13

Catherine & John Dickson 1913

Lena & Stanley Kilborn 1923

John Alexander McLeod 1931

Jules De Keyser 1942

Annabelle McGown 1956

Arthur and Mary Finn 1959

Malcolm and Christine Finlayson 1962

Angus and Margaret Finlayson 1964

Kay Stockholder 1977

Chris and Nikki Renshaw 1998

Renters

Stuart Davies 1921

Fred and Mabel Byers 1927

Jo and Ellen Donnelly 1929

Harry and Mabel Aley 1935

James and May Hasler 1936

Doug and Mabel Davies 1939

Joe and Irene Lewis 1942

John and Evelyn Dalgleish 1944

Robert and Millicent Gregg 1955

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