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Stanley Park

Still Unsolved: Babes in the Woods, 70 Years Later

by Eve Lazarus on January 12, 2023
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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.

The babes in the woods have their names back
Henry Hudson Elementary, ca.1947. Derek D’Alton top row, second from left
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
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.”

Derek and David D'Alton
Derek and David D’Alton, 1940s (with thanks to Darlene Ruckle for the photo composition)

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.

Related:

© All rights reserved. Unless otherwise indicated, all blog content copyright Eve Lazarus.

The Evolution of Devonian Harbour Park

by Eve Lazarus on June 26, 2021
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The name of the 11-acre green space at the entrance to Stanley Park known as Devonian Harbour Park has nothing to do with its indigenous history, the land’s connection to the Kanakas, the buildings that once dotted its landscape or Vancouver. The park was named after the Calgary-based Devonian Group of Charitable Foundations which forked over $600,000 to develop the site to its present look in 1983.

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

Note the lovely old Stuart Building (1909-1982) Bruce Stewart photos
Kanaka:

Kanaka was a term for indigenous Hawaiians who came to Canada in the early 1800s to work for the Hudson’s Bay Company’s fur trade. Most went home, but some stayed, married Squamish women and settled in Coal Harbour.

By the early 1900s, the Kanakas had been chased out and moved to the Mission Reserve in North Vancouver. That left the land free to develop. And, in 1911, Vancouver’s population of nearly 150,000 felt big enough to sustain a 10,000-seat arena. It was built by a couple of young guys from Victoria: brothers Frank and Lester Patrick (aged 25 and 27 respectively) who needed a home for their new Pacific Coast Hockey Association. As a comparison, Rogers Arena, built in 1995, has a capacity of 18,910.

Denman Arena fire, August 1936. Courtesy Canadian Colour and Vancouver Archives.
Denman Arena:

In 1915, the Denman Arena hosted Vancouver’s first and only Stanley Cup—when they beat the Ottawa Senators in three straight games. Rudolph Valentino judged a beauty contest, Arthur Conan Doyle (creator of Sherlock Holmes) gave a speech, and the arena was used for public skating, wrestling, military assemblies and musical performances.

Selwyn Pullan photographed the first proposed model in 1963

Then on August 20, 1936, just hours after 4,000 boxing fans watched Max Baer fight James Walsh, the building burned to the ground.

In 1927, the Patricks built the Denman Auditorium just to the south of the Denman Arena. The Auditorium survived the fire, went through a few different owners and names, hosted everything from political rallies to a strange assortment of revivalists and faith healers from the States.

Bruce Stewart took these photos of the ‘tribe’ in residence in November 1971. He had met with Rod Marining, later co-founder of Greenpeace and Rod was able to rally the tribe for this amazing ensemble shot of everyone on the big rock. “Later in the week, I ventured down to the small a-frame lean-to during a snowstorm to meet up with the gang and to present my photographs,” says Bruce.
Development:

The building was demolished in 1959 to make way for the opening of the Queen Elizabeth Theatre.

Now devoid of buildings, developers dreamed of hotels and condos. The first attempt came from New York in the early 1960s. The second, by a local outfit called Harbour Park Developments that proposed 15 towers soaring up to 31-storeys in height. The third was a plan by the Four Seasons Hotel chain. They wanted to build a 14-storey hotel, three 30-storey condos towers, and a bunch of townhouses.

A peace sign garden at All Seasons Park, the proposed site of a Four Seasons Hotel near the entrance to Stanley Park, on May 30, 1971.  Gordon Sedawie photo, Province
Hippies:

On May 29, 1971 about a hundred hippie/activists took over the site. They planted maple trees and vegetables, dug a pond, and installed children’s playground equipment. They called it All Seasons Park. The hippies lasted just under a year. Mayor Tom Campbell brought in the backhoes and knocked all the shelters down. Campbell’s own development dream fell apart later that year when the Federal government refused to hand over a crucial piece of land. Instead, the land was annexed to Stanley Park and purchased by the City of Vancouver.

One of the most popular features of the park is the bronze sculpture of the woman sitting on the park bench. She’s searching through her bag looking for the glasses that she’s forgotten are on top of her head. One Valentine’s Day, the woman was joined by another bronze statue—that of North Vancouver pioneer Walter Draycott. No one is saying how Walter got all the way to Stanley Park from his Lynn Valley bench, but he was returned without incident and bolted into place to stop him from wandering off again. Eve Lazarus photo, 2020

© All rights reserved. Unless otherwise indicated, all blog content copyright Eve Lazarus

The Babes in the Woods Part 2

by Eve Lazarus on December 18, 2020
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The Babes in the Woods is the story of two tiny skeletons found in Stanley Park in 1953, and is based on a story in Cold Case Vancouver: The city’s most Baffling unsolved murders

This episode is sponsored by Forbidden Vancouver Walking Tours.

The Babes in the Woods is the story of two tiny skeletons found in Stanley Park in 1953. The case is still unsolved, but the investigation continues, and in part two I visit the site where the boys were found with the researcher who worked on a Babes in the Woods task force in the early 2000s. I talk with the VPD Inspector who moved the investigation forward in 2015, and we hear about the latest development from the coroner who is currently revisiting Vancouver’s most famous cold case.

The strongest lead in recent years has come from a former VPD officer named Ron Amiel. Ron, now 90, believes the boys were born in England between 1937 and 1939 and were killed because their mother wanted a new beginning by marrying an American soldier. A son born in 1941 and who died in 1974 was exhumed in 2015 so his DNA could be tested against that of the Babes in the woods.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this first series of Cold Case Canada half as much as I’ve enjoyed making it. All of the episodes are based on original research and interviews from my book Cold Case Vancouver: the city’s most baffling unsolved murders.

If you’d like to join in the conversation about this and other murders, please check out my Facebook group page Cold Case Canada.

Show notes

Intro:       Mark Dunn

Music:      Don’t die on me by Myuu, The Dark Piano

PSA:   Vancouver Police Museum and Archives

Promo:      Blood, Sweat, and Fear: The Story of Inspector Vance

SOURCES:

Lazarus, Eve. Cold Case Vancouver: the city’s most baffling unsolved murders. Arsenal Pulp Press, 2015

BC Coroners Service Unidentified Human Remains Map 

The Vancouver Police Museum and Archives

Vital Statistics – death certificates

 

The Babes in the Woods Part 1

by Eve Lazarus on December 4, 2020
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The Babes in the Woods case is the story of two tiny skeletons found in Stanley Park. It is one of Vancouver’s oldest unsolved murder mysteries. This episode is based on a story in Cold Case Vancouver: The city’s most Baffling unsolved murders

This episode is sponsored by Forbidden Vancouver Walking Tours. Enter the code ColdCase for 15% off your tickets.

While the murders happened sometime in the 1940s, the story starts in January 1953 when a Vancouver Parks Board employee stepped on a skull in a remote area of Stanley Park. When he scraped back the leaves, he found bones covered by a woman’s coat, two children’s flying helmets, shoes, a lunch box, and the murder weapon—a hatchet.

The hatchet at the Vancouver Police Museum. Eve Lazarus photo

No one had reported missing children.

The Babes in the Woods is Vancouver’s own Hansel and Gretel fairy tale, a dark edge to the city’s beloved Stanley Park, but with an unsatisfying, inconclusive ending.

It’s also one of the most botched.

1953 crime scene photo. Courtesy Vancouver Police Museum and Archives

Before DNA profiling it was extremely difficult to determine sex from skeletal remains, and even though the clothes suggested otherwise, a pathologist determined that the bones belonged to a boy and a girl. For the next half century police searched school records and followed up on tips in an attempt to identify a missing brother and sister.

Police theorized that the children were taken to the park for a picnic by their mother, who then smashed in their heads with an axe, and now unencumbered, went off to have a good time.

There are more than a few problems with this theory. The children were covered with a woman’s coat, more an act of compassion than one of cold-blooded murder. And post-war Vancouver was a brutal place. There was rampant homelessness, transients and violence—especially against women. Women lost their jobs when the men came back from the war. There was no safety net and those post-war years saw a number of cases where desperate women killed their children and then committed suicide.

In 1996, when DNA profiling became part of the forensics toolkit, investigators reopened the file. A UBC scientist extracted DNA from the teeth and soon realized that he was dealing with two boys—not a brother and a sister. This information changed the course of the investigation.

In the next episode: Babes in the Woods Part 2: Kat Thorsen and I take a walk out to the secret spot in Stanley Park where the skeletons of the Babes in the Woods were first discovered. I talk to the VPD Inspector who was in charge of the file in 2015 about how he furthered the investigation, and I talk to the coroner, who reveals an exciting new development.

Show Notes

Intro:       Mark Dunn

Music:      Lament by Myuu, The Dark Piano

Sponsor:   Forbidden Vancouver Walking Tours

Promo:      Blood, Sweat, and Fear: The Story of Inspector Vance

Guest:        Retired VPD Detective Sergeant Brian Honeybourn

Graphic:    Courtesy Kat Thorsen

Sources:

Lazarus, Eve. Cold Case Vancouver: the city’s most baffling unsolved murders. Arsenal Pulp Press, 2015

The Vancouver Police Museum and Archives

Vancouver Police Department annual reports 1940s and ’50s

Retired VPD officer Ron Amiel

Vital Statistics – death certificates

Georgia Straight

Globe and Mail

Ottawa Citizen

Province

Vancouver Sun

West Ender

© All rights reserved. Unless otherwise indicated, all blog content copyright Eve Lazarus.

The Real Story Behind the Lost Lagoon Fountain

by Eve Lazarus on September 5, 2020
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In this week’s blog, we’re doing some myth busting while telling the real story behind the Lost Lagoon Fountain in Stanley Park.

Official souvenir book for Vancouver’s 1936 Golden Jubilee. Courtesy MoV

A couple of weeks ago, Chris Stiles sent me a photo of Vancouver that her husband’s grandparents had purchased from Frank Gowen in 1913. I wanted to see other photos by Gowen, who specialized in postcards, and found one he took of the fountain in Lost Lagoon. Before I posted it on my Facebook page Every Place has a Story, I looked it up in one of my reference books and found it was installed as part of Vancouver’s Golden Jubilee in 1936, “a leftover from the Chicago World Fair.”

Except that it wasn’t.

Lost Lagoon’s spanking new fountain in 1936. Courtesy CVA 612-039
Urban Myth:

A sharp-eyed reader quickly corrected me, and said that it was an urban myth, the fountain was designed right here in Vancouver.

So, let’s set the record straight.

Robert H. William, an electrical engineer of Hume & Rumble, Electrical Contractors and Engineers designed the Lost Lagoon Fountain for the Vancouver Jubilee Committee. According to a story in the Vancouver Sun, August 8, 1936, Williams was inspired by a fountain he saw in Los Angeles. Lost Lagoon was drained, and the fountain was built on top of a concrete mat that had been laid over 70 piles driven into the mud. It took a month.

Casper Golhof Snr and seven of his children in 1938, three of whom are still alive
The Plan:

“When operating, it is like a symphony concert, in motion and colour instead of music,” Williams told a reporter. All equipment was built in Canada, the pumps were constructed in Vancouver and only union labour was used.

There were 54 floodlights, 310 jets and the colours were white, amber, green and blue and red.

Heather Virtue-Lapierre at Lost Lagoon in 1951

The original plans had called for natural rock facings to cover the concrete, but there wasn’t enough money.

Not everyone liked it. People said it was too much money to spend in the middle of the Depression. A 1937 news story called it “a squat, moth-coloured eyesore.” A City Councillor called it “a monstrosity that yells at you $35,000,” the final cost of construction.

Lost Lagoon Fountain, courtesy Glen Mofford

The fountain was turned off for a few years during the second world war, then it received a much needed makeover for Expo ’86. It’s been out of commission for a few years now.

© All rights reserved. Unless otherwise indicated, all blog content copyright Eve Lazarus.

 

 

Frank Gowen’s Vancouver

by Eve Lazarus on August 21, 2020
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Frank Gowen was born in England in 1877. He moved to Vancouver in 1913 and worked as a photographer until his death in 1946.

Frank Gowen’s photo of 1913 Vancouver. Courtesy Chris Stiles

Chris Stiles kindly sent me this fabulous panoramic photo that she and husband Alan found when they were going through some personal effects of Alan’s father recently.

“My husband’s dad, Roy Stiles was assistant fire chief for the Vancouver Fire Department for many years. He passed in March of 2019, at almost 94 years of age,” she wrote. “I know you love the old houses of Vancouver and there are a number of them visible in this photograph.”

Georgia Street from Hornby, Frank Gowen photo. Uno Langmann Family Collection of B.C. Photographs
Heritage buildings:

I do love old buildings, and Chris has identified quite a few of them:

  • Right foreground building is the Waghorn, Gwynn & Co. Stock Brokers, Real Estate, and Loans. 517 Granville Street
  • The Alcazar Hotel, on Dunsmuir & northeast corner Homer. The back of sign is visible on second building to the left and back of second row of houses.
  • Baker & Co. Signs, 346 Dunsmuir (on the left and behind three houses about in the centre of photograph)
  • To the centre right, behind houses is the North West Biscuit Co. Ltd. at 579 Richards.
  • On the far left edge, midway up the photo is the Van-loo Cigar Factory (formerly The Stettler Cigar Factory) 140 Water Street

And look at how the second Hotel Vancouver just dominates the city’s skyline.

Seaplane crashing through West End roof, 1918. Frank Gowen photo. CVA Air P31
Early Vancouver:

Chris thinks that Roy’s parents Walter and Daisy Stiles bought the panoramic photo from Frank Gowen shortly after he took it in 1913. It would make it one of Gowen’s earliest photos taken soon after he moved to Vancouver.

Walter Stiles worked for BC Electric from 1910 to 1954.

Hollow Tree, Stanley Park. Frank Gowen photo, 1920s. Uno Langmann Family Collection of B.C. Photographs

I went to Frank Gowen’s Vancouver 1914 – 1931 by Fred Thirkell and Bob Scullion to find out more about him. Gowen arrived in Vancouver from Brandon, Manitoba in 1913 and they settled first in Burnaby. While he was establishing himself as a photographer specializing in postcards, he moonlighted as a jitney driver (this was like an early Uber service where people used their private cars to give rides—only back then a trip cost five to 10 cents).

The no longer working Lost Lagoon Fountain. Frank Gowen photo, Uno Langmann Family Collection of B.C. Photographs
Stanley Park Photographer:

In 1916, he became the official Stanley Park photographer and took many of those posed photos that you see outside Hollow Tree and Prospect Point. His postcards sold in the thousands.

There is a great collection of his photos at UBC and the Uno Langmann Collection 

The Grosvenor Hotel, 840 Howe Street (1913-1983). Frank Gowen photo, Uno Langmann Family Collection of B.C. Photographs

Gowen’s range was extensive. He took everything from hotels and ships to piers and beaches, train stations and parks and shot all over British Columbia.

English Bay. Frank Gowen photo, courtesy CVA Be P93

Chris Stiles also has a great family history. Her father, Fritz Autzen was a baker from Germany who ran the Hippocampus on Denman Street in the 1960s. Fritz was also an avid photographer and his story and photos appear in my new book Vancouver Exposed coming this fall.

© All rights reserved. Unless otherwise indicated, all blog content copyright Eve Lazarus.

Aborted Plans: Deadman’s Island

by Eve Lazarus on March 8, 2019
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Members of the Town Planning Commission passed a resolution stating that they were not in favour of Deadman’s Island as a site for a proposed museum of Vancouver art, historical and scientific society. It was declared the Coal Harbour site was too inaccessible—Province: April  9, 1932

It continues to amaze me that Stanley Park has survived, despite all the attempts to develop it over the years.

In 1912, there was a push to “transform” Lost Lagoon into Grand Round Pond, with a surrounding museum, stadium and amusement park. There would be ornamental gardens, fountains a children’s playground, library and Georgia Street would be the “Champs-Elysees.”

Plans for Lost Lagoon in the Vancouver Sun, December 28, 2018

Fortunately, commonsense prevailed. Said Mayor James Findlay: “Thomas Mawson may be the finest architect in the world, but he cannot put Stanley Park back for us once it is destroyed.”

In the 1960s and ‘70s there were three attempts to turn Seasons Park—the 14 acres at the entrance—into a massive hotel and condo complex.

Sharp and Thompson Architects drawing of a proposed museum at Deadman’s Island in 1930. Courtesy VPL #7899

And in the early ‘30s there were plans to plop a castle-like museum building complete with citadel, on Deadman’s Island.

Sharp and Thompson Architects drawing of the Pacific Museum for Deadman’s Island. Courtesy VPL #7898

Measuring just 3.8 hectares, and attached to Stanley Park by a short causeway, Deadman’s Island, or Skwtsa7s (meaning island), has an amazing history. It was a battle site. It was an indigenous burial ground, where the dead were placed in wooden coffins and buried both in the ground and up in the trees. When small pox hit, it was used to quarantine the victims, and later bury those who didn’t make it. The land has also claimed British Merchant seaman, people from Moodyville, victims from the Great, and workers killed while extending the CPR line from Port Moody to Coal Harbour. One article says West Vancouver’s Navvy Jack is buried there.

Deadman’s Island seen just behind the second CPR station at the foot of Granville Street in the early 1900s. Courtesy VPL #9834

In 1930, the federal government leased the island to the city. Shortly after, the city commissioned Sharp and Thompson Architects to draw up designs for Pacific Museum. It didn’t get very far, and in 1944, became the site of HMCS Discovery Naval Reserve.

When the 99-year lease came up for renewal in 2007, Mayor Sam Sullivan tried to make it publicly accessible. He told the Globe and Mail he wanted a ferry service from downtown and a museum that could preserve and display the maritime heritage of native people.

Vancouver in 1933 with Deadman’s Island in the background. Courtesy VPL 4368

The Musqueam just wanted it back.

Except for an open house once or twice a year, which I always seem to miss it, the site remains off limits.

Sources:

© All rights reserved. Unless otherwise indicated, all blog content copyright Eve Lazarus.

Captain Pybus and Vancouver’s St. Clair Hotel

by Eve Lazarus on July 21, 2018
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A little while ago I was having lunch with Tom Carter and Maurice Guibord at the newly renovated Railway Club. Afterwards, we were walking along Richards Street and Tom gave us a tour of the St. Clair Hotel-Hostel.

The Blushing Boutique is on the ground floor and a set of very steep stairs takes you up to the Hostel. The whole interior is designed in a nautical theme, which I guess isn’t surprising since it was designed by architect Samuel Birds for Captain Henry Pybus.

The four-storey brick building at 577 Richards Street was finished in 1911 and initially known as the Dunsmuir Rooms until 1930 when it became the St Clair Rooms. It sits next door to BC Stamp Works, which was built in 1895 as a boarding house.

When Pybus was building his commercial block, it looks like the owner at BC Stamp Works (583 Richards) took the opportunity to have the first floor lifted so a retail store or offices could be added—one of Vancouver’s few remaining buried houses.

Captain Henry Pybus in 1909. Courtesy CVA Port P1645

Pybus captained the Empress of China, and later and the Empress of Japan—a white clipper-ship, which with Pybus at the helm, held the record for crossing the Pacific for over 20 years. Pybus retired in 1911 at age 60. The Empress of Japan was decommissioned in 1922 and left to rot in Vancouver Harbour. Fortunately, the editor of the Province heard she was to be scrapped and had his staff rescue her dragon figurehead, donated it to the city, and it sat in Stanley Park until 1960 when it was replaced with a fiberglass replica. (The original was restored and remains with the Vancouver Maritime Museum).

The dragon figurehead from the Empress of Japan in 1936. Courtesy CVA Bo N83.1

According to Michael Kluckner’s Vanishing Vancouver, the South African born Pybus, fancied himself as a speculator and owned a bunch of property around the city—including a pre-fab Model J BC Mills house that sat at East 1st and Lonsdale from 1908 until 1995 when it was moved—and remains at—Lynn Headwaters Regional Park.

Pybus’s BC Mills House now at Lynn Headwaters

Pybus lost most of his properties in the land crash of 1913/14. He spent the rest of his long life in the West End and died in 1938. Fifty years later, his grandson, Henry Pybus Bell-Irving became the 23rd Lieutenant Governor of BC

What’s surprising, is how little change there has been on the Richards Street block. The retail space below the St. Clair started as a storefront for the United Typewriter Company, became the Vancouver Auction Rooms in the ‘20s, and by 1930 was the headquarters for Pluto Office Furniture. BC Stamp Works, the St. Clair and the office furniture business were still co-existing 25 years later, and not much has changed in the years since.

Top photo: The St. Clair Hotel and BC Stamp Works on the 500-block Richards Street in 1985. Courtesy CVA 790-1797

© All rights reserved. Unless otherwise indicated, all blog content copyright Eve Lazarus.

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