North Vancouver Museum and Archives

Edgemont Village: Then and Now

by Eve Lazarus on January 28, 2023

Edgemont Village, North Vancouver. Then and Now: 1949-2023

3028 Edgemont Boulevard — 3026 & 3028 Edgemont Blvd, 1949. NVMA 533

I came across this photo from the North Vancouver Museum and Archives a while back. It shows a fairly ordinary looking building on Edgemont Boulevard taken in 1949. I headed off to Edgemont Village last week to see what we’d replaced it. Instead, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the building is still there, surrounded by other buildings.

3026 and 3028 Edgemont Boulevard — 3026 & 3028 Edgemont Blvd. Eve Lazarus photo, 2023

Then I poured a glass of wine and opened up city directories.

In January 1949, Dr. Reid Townley occupied 3028 (left), next door to the Edgemont Beauty Salon. That year, the only other building between West Queens and Highland was the Queen’s Market grocery on the corner (which 74 years later is still a grocery) and Bob’s meats next door.

According to BC Assessment, it was built in 1949 the same year the photo was taken.

Today, Dr. Townley’s office is occupied by Kim’s Hair Studio and the former beauty salon is now a Subway.

I was curious about Dr. Townley, the first occupant of the building. According to a 2007 obituary in the BC Medical Journal, he was an interesting guy. He was born in Ontario, went to Queen’s University in 1938, survived the war, and interned at St. Paul’s Hospital in Vancouver. He met Esther on a ferry from Victoria, married in 1945 and they stayed married until his death 62 years later.

The couple lived on the North Shore, and when he wasn’t doctoring, Townley fell in love with sailing.

Dr. Reid Townley — The more things change, the more they stay the same. Times Colonist, February 1, 2004, Letter to the Editor

By 1953, city directories show Townsley had closed his Edgemont Boulevard practice, most likely because he was studying anesthesiology. In 1958, Townsley worked at Lions Gate Hospital. He and Esther had three kids, and retired to Salt Spring Island in 1980.

Dr. Guy Winch, his friend and colleague wrote in his obituary: “He was a quiet-spoken man, always thoughtful, with a delightfully subtle sense of humor. In addition to medicine, he had a great love of good literature, music, and art. He was an excellent sailor and skipper and taught me most of what I know about sailing, for which I shall always be indebted. He was a charming companion, an excellent doctor, and altogether a lovely man.”

I can’t think of a better way to end a story or a man’s life.

Posts about the North Shore

Tags 3026 Edgemont Boulevard, 3028 Edgemont Boulevard, Esther Townsley, Guy Winch, North Vancouver Museum and Archives, Reid Townsley

The Murder of Jennie Eldon Conroy

by Eve Lazarus on July 3, 2020

In 1944, Jennie Conroy was a 24-year-old war worker living in North Vancouver. She was murdered and left near the West Vancouver cemetery.

In 2015, I was almost finished Cold Case Vancouver when research archivist Daien Ide sent me an email from the NVMA. Daien had just acquired an album with photos that went up to the early 1940s. The owner’s name Miss. J. Conroy and address were inscribed in the inside front cover. Daien did some digging and thought that I would be interested in what she found out.

I was.

This podcast is from a chapter in Cold Case Vancouver: The City’s Most Baffling Unsolved Murders and includes interviews with Jennie’s daughter Mary and her niece Debbie.

Jennie Conroy in North Vancouver early 1940s found in the mystery photo album. Courtesy NVMA

Worked at the Shipyards:

Daien found out that Jennie Conroy was a 24-year-old shipyards war worker who was born and raised in North Vancouver. She was brutally murdered in 1944, her body left near the West Vancouver cemetery.

I wrote up a post on my blog and the next day I received an email from Jennie Conroy’s niece, Debbie.

Debbie told me that Jennie had given birth to a daughter just a couple of months before her murder and kindly put me in touch with her. Jennie was unmarried and Mary was adopted by a Chilliwack family. She married, raised five boys and now lives in New Zealand.

Crime scene photo at West Vancouver Cemetery, 1944

Jennie’s Family:

The story in Cold Case Vancouver, became a collaborative effort between Mary, Debbie and myself. You’ll hear from these incredible women, and how several decades later, Jennie’s unsolved murder continues to impact their lives.

Mary spent years researching her biological mother. And together, we built a profile of Jennie – what she looked like, what her family background was like, and the amazing person that she was.

Jennie (right) with her best friend Ruth Pattison (Leask) in 1937. Courtesy Heather Leask

And then bizarrely, when I was researching my book Blood, Sweat, and Fear, I came across several boxes that had been packed away by Inspector Vance, a forensic scientist with the Vancouver Police Department who retired in 1949. One of the boxes had an envelope marked Jennie Eldon Conroy. Inside were dozens of newspaper clippings, crime scene photos, an autopsy report, even samples of Jennie’s hair and gravel from the murder site that spilled out on my desk.

Inspector Vance’s file of newspaper articles, crime scene photos, autopsy notes and forensic samples packed away in 1949 and rediscovered in 2017.

Inspector Vance solved a lot of cases over his 42-year- career, unfortunately Jennie’s wasn’t one of them.

North Shore News Review

Sponsors: Forbidden Vancouver Walking Tours and Erin Hakin Jewellery

Show notes:

If you have any information about these murders please call North Vancouver RCMP at 604-985-3311. If you wish to remain anonymous, call crime stoppers at 1-800-222-8477 or visit the website solvecrime.ca

Music: You by thedarkpiano.com

Intro: Mark Dunn

Voice overs: Mark Dunn, Megan Dunn

Promo: Blood, Sweat, and Fear: the story of Inspector Vance

With immense gratitude to Jennie’s daughter Mary and her niece Debbie.

Tags Inspector F.C.B. Vance, Jennie Eldon Conroy, North Vancouver Museum and Archives, Walter Mulligan

Jack Cash, Photographer

by Eve Lazarus on March 7, 2020

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.

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.

Jack died in 2005. His obituary says: “Jack most recently celebrated his 87^th birthday in his unique style by riding a Honda Gold Wing motorcycle.”

Page from Jack Cash’s customer log book, 1954. Courtesy NVMA

Gwen Cash and the Trend House

Tags Gwen Cash, Jack Cash, James Lovick Advertising Agency, North Vancouver Museum and Archives, the Columbian, Trend House

Along the North Shore’s Spirit Trail – Moodyville to Lonsdale Quay (part 2)

by Eve Lazarus on September 29, 2018

At the end of last week’s blog, I left you at Moodyville Park, the only thing left of a once thriving town. Now hop back on your bike and follow the signs west along First Street East—and be careful of those construction trucks! I imagine in another year or so this area will be unrecognizable, but occasionally you’ll see a bungalow–the lone standout in a sea of rubble.

North Vancouver war-time housing 1943. Courtesy BC Archives 41451

Some of those holdouts were built during WW2 when Wartime Housing, a crown corporation, built tracts of neat cottages for shipyard workers. According to North Vancouver Museum and Archives, rents averaged $20 per month plus $1.35 for water services. The website says about 100 wartime houses still survive, but I’m not confident how current that is.

You’ll see signs taking you down the squiggly path and onto Alder Street and along the working waterfront.

PGE moved to its temporary home on the Spirit Trail in 2014

The old Pacific Great Eastern (PGE) Railway-North Van’s first train station—is boarded up and stuck behind a chain link fence until a new home is found for it (I hope).

On January 1, 1914, the PGE began service from this station at the foot of Lonsdale Avenue to Dundarave. At the time the plan was to extend the tracks to Squamish, but that didn’t eventuate and the railway only went as far as Horseshoe Bay. The railway service ended in 1928, and the station became a bus depot, and then was used as offices until it was moved to Mahon Park in 1971. It was spiffied up and returned to its home at the foot of Lonsdale in 1971, and moved to its current location in 2014.

Palace Hotel in 1909. Courtesy NVMA 8155

The Spirit Trail takes you along Esplanade and down St. George’s to Victory Ship Way. If you look up the street you’ll see a 15-storey condo tower at East 2^nd called the Olympic. In 1906 Lorenzo Reda built a brick hotel in that spot. Within two years, he added more rooms and a dance hall, and in 1908 the Palace Hotel boasted that it was “the only hotel in British Columbia with a roof garden.” Reda died in 1928. The hotel became the Olympic, and by the ‘70s (when it was known locally as the “Big O”), it was hosting rock bands and strippers. It was demolished in 1989.

The Shipyards in 1948, courtesy CVA Wat P58

.Aside from a couple of the old shipyard buildings and artifacts, most of the buildings have been torn down and replaced with condos. This was a hopping place during WWII, and Burrard Dry Docks was the first to hire women in significant numbers and pay them decent wages.

Women workers at Burrard Dry Docks, 1945. Courtesy NVMA 1421

And some of you may remember the Erection Shop that sat at the bottom of St. Georges until political correctness made the shipyards take the sign down for Expo 86.

We’ll start at Shipyards Coffee at Lonsdale Quay next week for a chat about the history of the area.

The North Shore’s Spirit Trail – Moodyville (part 1)

Lonsdale Quay (part 3)

Mosquito Creek (part 4)

Harbourside (part 5)

Pemberton to Capilano River (part 6)

West Vancouver (part 7)

Tags Burrard Dry Docks, Moodyville, North Vancouver Museum and Archives, Olympic Hotel, Pacific Great Eastern Railway, Palace Hotel, Spirit Trail, the Erection Shop, Wartime Housing

The North Shore’s Spirit Trail – Moodyville (part 1)

by Eve Lazarus on September 22, 2018

In May 2014, the City of North Vancouver inked a deal with the Squamish Nation and moved a step closer to realizing the dream of building a 35-kilometre waterfront trail that would wind its way from Deep Cove to Horseshoe Bay. The mostly finished portion of the Spirit Trail runs from Sunrise Park (just above Park and Tilford Gardens) to 18^th Street in West Vancouver–(just past John Lawson Park). The ride (or walk) along the finished portion is about 20 km return.

The Moodyville Park section was completed in 2015. The trail includes an impressive overpass to Heywood Street, a mini-suspension bridge, public art, and some now fading public markers. You’ll have to reach deep down into your imagination, because the only thing left of Moodyville is a small park with some signage surrounded by a lot of building activity.

A two-storey hotel opened in 1883 and it was reportedly “a comfortable and exceedingly well-managed” operation, with a bar stocked with top wines and liquors, and where “drunkenness was unknown.” The Columbian, photo NVMA 1900

Up you go over the new overpass, and a great view of the working waterfront that takes you right into Moodyville, once a thriving town built entirely around lumber. Settled in the early 1860s, the town was completely distinct from the rest of North Vancouver with a business district that included a library, Masonic lodge, school, jail and cookhouse situated where the railway tracks and grain elevators are today. The mill was at the foot of what is now Moody Avenue, and a wooden wharf extended from the mill out over deep water. The town even had its own ferry service.

William Nahanee (with laundry bag) and a group of longshoremen on the dock of Moodyville Sawmill in 1889. CVA Mi P2

While the workers were comprised of several different races who could trace their origins back to Europe, Asia, the Pacific Islands “Kanakas,” Latin America and the West Indies, lived in segregated housing; the wealthy lived in “Nob Hill” a nod to San Francisco’s prestigious neighbourhood.

The most prestigious house was Invermere, known as the “Big House” and built in the late 1870s for Hugh Nelson a partner in the Moodyville Sawmill Company (later Lieutenant Governor of BC). Lumberman John Hendry bought Invermere and lived there for a time. His son-in-law Eric Hamber, another Lieutenant Governor of BC, demolished the house after his death. The replacement house is at 543 East 1^st Street.

Electricity came to Moodyville in 1882, a full five years before Vancouver and the electric lights reflected all the way across the waters to Hastings Mill in Vancouver. Moodyville was the first town site north of San Francisco to sport electric street lights.

By 1898 the Mill’s fortunes had peaked and in 1901 it closed. People moved away in search of work, and business activity shifted to the waterfront at the foot of Lonsdale Avenue. Moodyville officially became part of North Vancouver in 1925.

“Moodyville was the largest, oldest, most prosperous and certainly most decorous settlement on the Inlet. It had a population of several hundred, all respectable families, with tidy homes strung along well-laid out streets up the hillside from Moody’s mill.” Photo ca.1890 CVA Mi P22

The Low Level Road, constructed two years later, paralleled the railway line. Much of the hillside was scraped away and re-deposited as fill on the tidal flats to reclaim 15 acres (6 hectares). Midland Pacific was first to locate on the fill and opened a grain elevator in 1928. The area known as Nob Hill was subdivided, war-time housing followed, and a housing development called Ridgeway Place sold in the late 1950s.

With thanks to the North Vancouver Museum and Archives for letting me work on their Water’s Edge Exhibit in 2016.

Moodyville to Lonsdale Quay (part 2)

Lonsdale Quay (part 3)

Mosquito Creek (part 4)

Harbourside (part 5)

Pemberton to Capilano River (part 6)

West Vancouver (part 7)

Tags Eric Hamber, Hugh Nelson, John Hendry, Kanakas, Midland Pacific, Moodyville, North Vancouver Museum and Archives, Spirit Trail, Water's Edge

Saving History: Twinning the Lions Gate Bridge

by Eve Lazarus on August 19, 2017

Lions Gate Bridge in 1940. Courtesy CVA 586-462

From Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History

Last year, Daien Ide, reference historian at the North Vancouver Museum and Archives was sitting at her desk when she got a tip. A 1994 model of a proposed Lions Gate twinned bridge had turned up at the Burnaby Hospice Thrift Store on Kingsway with a $200 price tag.

A local had saved the model after finding it tossed out in an alley behind his house a couple of decades earlier. For whatever reason, he decided it needed rehoming, and gave it to the thrift shop.

Vancouver Sun photoThe Lions Gate Bridge spans the first narrows in Burrard Inlet, connects Vancouver to the North Shore, and is one of the most iconic structures in the city. Built by the Guinness family to encourage development after they bought the side of a West Vancouver mountain, the suspension bridge was tolled from the time it opened in 1938 until 1963.

It cost 25 cents for cars and five cents for pedestrians.

By the early 1990s, the bridge was in serious need of an upgrade or replacement and the City narrowed down the options to three proposals. One was to build a tunnel; another to twin the bridge and double the number of lanes; and the third was to double-deck the existing three-lane bridge.

In 1994, Safdie partnered with engineering firm SNC Lavalin, and the Squamish Nation, which owned the land on the north end of the bridge.

They wanted to build an identical bridge to the east of the original structure that would carry northbound traffic, while the original bridge would carry vehicles south into Stanley Park. The new bridge would be tolled, and judging by the model, cut a chunk out of Stanley Park.

The scaled model is clearly identified with the name of the architectural firm—Safdie Architects. In Canada, Moshe Safdie is a highly regarded architect, known for the Expo 67 Habitat in Montreal, the National Gallery in Ottawa, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, and our very own Vancouver Public Library.

As we now know, the Province chose the cheapest and least controversial option, electing to widen the three-lane existing bridge and replace the main bridge deck.

In 2005, the Lions Gate Bridge was designated a National Historic Site of Canada.

Our traffic problems persist.

Tags Guinness Family, Lions Gate Bridge, Moshe Safdie, North Vancouver Museum and Archives, Vancouver Public Library

Foncie’s North Vancouver Connection

by Eve Lazarus on May 28, 2016

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.

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:

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.

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.

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.

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:

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.”

Foncie Pulice died in 2003 at the age of 88.

Water’s Edge at Presentation House

by Eve Lazarus on April 16, 2016

Next time you’re in the Lower Lonsdale area, drop by Presentation House and check out Water’s Edge. It’s a new interactive exhibit developed by the North Vancouver Museum that shows how the waterfront has changed over the last couple of hundred years. I did the research and wrote the stories, archivist Janet Turner sourced hundreds of photos and maps, and Juan Tanus and his team at Kei Space added the magic. The result is a really interesting look at how industry, infrastructure and development have changed the coastline all the way from Indian Arm to Ambleside.

Water's Edge at Presentation House — Flotsam and Jetsam wall for making your own art assemblage on set-up day.

The sound effects add to the whole experience, as does a floor to ceiling slide show of the blue cabin and accompanying video, as well as a wall of flotsam and jetsam. One of my favourite touches is the two benches from the old ferry building at the bottom of Lonsdale.

North Van has so many stories that it wasn’t hard to come up with close to 100.

One of my favourite stories is the streetcar that hurtled down Lonsdale in 1909 dumping all of its passengers, including the mayor’s wife, into the water.

Several stories came out of Maplewood, which has seen its coastline change from mudflats to a sand and gravel quarry to squatter shacks. Public protest saved the area from becoming another shopping centre, and it’s now a wild bird reserve that’s home to 246 different bird species.

Indian Arm has a plethora of stories. There’s the Wigwam Inn built by Alvo von Alvensleben in 1909. Canada’s only floating post office operated from 1908 to 1970 up and down Burrard Inlet, as did a floating grocery store which visited 25 different wharves five days a week in summer and three in winter. In 1891 Sarah Bernhardt took some time off from her performances at the long defunct Vancouver Opera House and went duck shooting at Indian Arm.

Water's Edge — Wigwam Inn, 1910. Built by Alvo Alvensleben the Inn attracted people like John Rockefeller and John Jacob Astor. CVA OUT P991.2

There’s stories from what was once Moodyville, named after Sewell P. Moody who went down on a ship in 1875, but not before leaving a message on some driftwood that said “S.P. Moody all lost.” And there’s the fire at the grain elevators 100 years later that claimed five lives.

Many stories come from the Mission Reserve. Their lacrosse team won the 1932 BC Championship. Emily Carr visited several times, painted and wrote about the area, and there are the very unpleasant stories that came out of the Residential School that sat near St. Paul’s Church until its demolition in 1959.

Some of the really amazing stories were the ones that didn’t happen—the aborted plans such as the Capilano Airfield, and if that had gone ahead, would have turned North Van into a very different place than it is today.

Tags Al Neil, Alvo von Alvensleben, Capilano Airfield, Carole Itter, Dollarton Pleasure Faire, emily carr, Joe Capilano, Juan Tanus, Kei Space, North Vancouver Museum and Archives, Presentation House, Sarah Bernhardt, Sewell P. Moody, Vancouver Opera House, Water's Edge, Wigwam Inn

Edgemont Village: Then and Now

Related:

The Murder of Jennie Eldon Conroy

Worked at the Shipyards:

Jennie’s Family:

Jack Cash, Photographer

Lived in North Vancouver:

Commercial photographer:

The Columbian:

Related:

Along the North Shore’s Spirit Trail – Moodyville to Lonsdale Quay (part 2)

The North Shore’s Spirit Trail – Moodyville (part 1)

Saving History: Twinning the Lions Gate Bridge

Foncie’s North Vancouver Connection

Gertie Wepsala:

The Fromme Sisters:

Marie Desimone:

Bette and Bob Booth:

Jennie and Eva Conroy:

Water’s Edge at Presentation House

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Worked at the Shipyards:

Jennie’s Family:

Lived in North Vancouver:

Commercial photographer:

The Columbian:

Related:

Gertie Wepsala:

The Fromme Sisters:

Marie Desimone:

Bette and Bob Booth:

Jennie and Eva Conroy:

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