thebravestcanadian

by Sam McBride

My great-grandparents Richard “Dick” McBride (1843-1921) and Fanny Morgan (1848-1919) were well-known and popular residents of  London, Ontario for many years. 

Dick was born in London, son of Samuel McBride and Elizabeth Webster, and lived there for the rest of his life, except for the final year when he lived with daughter Edith’s family in Montreal.  Fanny was born in Abergavenny, Wales, eldest daughter of  James Morgan and Margaret Hanbury.  She arrived in London with her emigrating Morgan family in about 1850 as a toddler, and died there shortly after the end of World War One.

Dick was a volunteer fireman in London for many years, before the city had its own fire department.  His father Samuel McBride (1819-1905) trained him in his trade of tinsmith, and hired him to help with a stove-manufacturing business in London, Ontario.  He served in the militia established in 1866 to protect the city against a feared invasion by Fenians – Irish-rooted veterans of the U.S. Civil War who demanded that Ireland be free of subjugation by Britain.  As it turned out, the disorganized Fenians only made minor incursions into New Brunswick, and did not make it to London.

Writing a family history in 1928, Dick’s cousin Harry Bapty of London noted that Dick “was a friend of everyone and a good-natured and lovable man”,  – a “Hail Fellow, Well Met.”  Based on this and other documents of the time, I get the feeling that Dick was recognized more for his friendliness and personality than for his work as a tinsmith or businessman.

In response to a request from his niece Edith McBride for memories of the family’s early days in London, her younger brother Walter Clement Morgan (1861-1940) of Buffalo, New York said in a letter that Fanny and eldest brother Fred went to a school on Hamilton Road in London, and it was either close to the Black Horse Tavern, or in it, while Walter and other younger siblings went to the Adelaide Street school between York and King.  Fanny worked at times as a dressmaker, and as a concert singer.  “She had innumerable admirers, and the house was cluttered up with them almost every evening,” according to Walter.  Any man among them who was shorter than six feet in height was invariably referred to by Fanny as “Little So-and-so”, such as Little Fewings, Little Johnny Traher and Little Tommy Martindale.  In contrast, she called the tall and handsome Richard McBride (her future husband) “The Lovely Dick”.

Fanny worked part-time as a dressmaker and was renowned for her superb soprano singing voice.  Unfortunately, the society of the day had low regard for women who were professional entertainers, and she was discouraged from a professional career.  Walter noted she was able to earn money for singing at certain events and occasions, such as the St. George’s, St. Andrews and St. Patrick’s Day celebrations for which she was paid an amount never less than ten dollars.  She would also perform at nearby communities such as Wardsville, and Glencoe where she sang for a fee and expenses.  “She was a great favourite,” Walter wrote, noting that John Mills gave him a job when he told him Fanny was his sister.

Fanny and Richard married on September 27, 1876 in London.  The ceremony was at the Morgan residence, with Rev. James Graham presiding.  Their children included George Everett McBride (1877-1954) who settled with wife Mabel Staples in Edmonton, Roland Leigh McBride (1881-1959), who settled with wife Winnifred Foote in Nelson, B.C., Josephine Fanny Rollins (1883-1965), who settled with husband William Rollins in Vancouver, B.C., and Edith Marjorie Monroe (1884-1965), who settled in London and later Quebec with husband Dr. Garfield Monroe.

Both Fanny and Richard travelled once to my old home town of Nelson in the West Kootenay region of southeastern B.C. British Columbia where their son Roland Leigh McBride moved in 1904 and remained for the rest of this life.  Fanny came to Nelson with daughter Edith and niece Ina in September 1911 for the wedding of R.L. McBride and Eva Mackay Hume at the Hume summer residence known as Killarney-on-the-Lake in what Eva’s sister Freeda described years later as “the social event of the year” in Nelson.  Fourteen months later Eva died of childbirth complications at their home at 824 Mill Street.  In the bedroom supporting her as she was dying were her sisters, husband and best friend Winnifred Mae Foote (1889-1960).  Among her last words were encouragement for Winnie and R.L. to marry, which they did two years later, settling at 708 Hoover Street.

Richard travelled to Nelson some time after wife Fanny’s death in March 1919, and was photographed by Winnie beside Kootenay Lake with son R.L. and toddler grandson Leigh Morgan McBride (1917-1995).  R.L. and Win’s other son would be Kenneth Gilbert McBride (1920-1944), who was an exceptional athlete and sportsman in Nelson and later at UBC before joining Leigh as an officer with the Seaforth Highlanders of Canada in 1942.  Ken was killed in action on September 16, 1944 near Rimini, Italy.  Leigh, who had been seriously wounded in the attack on the Hitler Line on May 24, 1944, including the loss of his right eye, was found unconscious by German troops and  taken to a German hospital for medical treatment, and then to a succession of German prisoner-of-war camps before he returned to Canada in late January 1945 on the Swedish ship “Gripsholm” in a prisoner exchange.  In 1948 Leigh married Rose Pamela “Dee Dee” Dewdney and they had sons Ken and Sam and daughter Eve. 

In their final years R.L. and Win enjoyed regular visits from Leigh and his family.

When R.L. McBride was manager of the Wood Vallance Hardware Company in the 1920s he encouraged his cousins in London, Ontario Walter and Keith Kettlewell to move to Nelson and work for him.  The other cousin to settle in Nelson was Helen Jennejohn, daughter of \George and Mabel McBride, who married Dr. Norman Jennejohn and they came to Nelson where he established a dental practice, and they had sons Bob, Bill and Bruce. 

By Sam McBride

Growing up in the small, relatively remote Kootenay city of Nelson, British Columbia in the 50s and 60s, I often thought that we Nelsonites would be on the sidelines as the world outside changed year by year.

Then in the late 50s and early 60s I noticed there was a lot of excitement about Nelson becoming a centre for training in visual and performing arts. The names you often heard were Ed Baravalle, a veteran of numerous Hollywood movies as music editor, including “The Ten Commandments” in 1956. He came to Kootenay Lake for a visit, and loved the scenery and setting so much he made his new home at Queens Bay and was the driving force and first director of the Nelson Summer School of the Fine Arts. His right-hand man in this work was the dynamic painter Zelko Kujunzik from Europe.

My mother Dee Dee, who had spent much of her youth learning and performing piano and voice, was thrilled to see her longtime home town become an arts centre, and volunteered at many levels to support. In the summer of 1961 she enrolled me in a children’s drama class that led to me performing the role of King Hector’s son in the play “The Trojan Women” which was part of a gala School of Fine Arts event on July 27, 1961 at the LV Rogers High School gym that also included dance and music presentations.

A highlight of the evening was the singing of “The Lord’s Prayer” by renowned American baritone Robert McFerrin, accompanied on the piano by his wife Sarah. Robert had made a name for himself as a singer for Hollywood movies like Porgy and Bess, where his voice was dubbed into songs by Sidney Poitier playing Porgy.

My mother and many other Nelsonites regarded the years of the School of Fine Arts as a Golden Age for the city.

Very likely in the audience that night was the couple’s 12-year-old son Bobby McFerrin, who would become famous in his own right in the 1980s for his soothing song “Don’t Worry, Be Happy”.

Here are some Nelson Daily News articles with information on the founding of the Nelson School of Fine Arts.

My great-aunt Lillian Allan (1891-1962) had two very different stretches of teaching in the far corners of the West Kootenay region of southeastern British Columbia, separated by 25 years as a wife raising children.

Born Lillian Maude Foote on April 23, 1891 in Perth, Ontario as the second child of Jim Foote and Edith W. James, she came west with the family in 1900 as her father had started a job as blacksmith at the then-famous Silver King Mine near Nelson, B.C. They lived in a rented cabin in the townsite next to the mine, about five miles from Nelson. She and her sisters Winnie Mae Foote (1889-1960) and Gladys Edith Foote (1894-1965) attended a one-room schoolhouse at the townsite along with about 10 other students, while younger sister Isabel Bessie Foote (1897-1988) stayed at home with her mother.

Two years later the family moved to Nelson when Jim got a job with the City of Nelson construction department. Lil, as she saw known to family and friends, loved learning and was an excellent student. Upon finishing school in Nelson she immediately went to Normal (teaching) school in Vancouver, and returned to her first teaching assignment in the Nelson area a year later.

According to her son, family historian Judge R. Blake Allan (1916-2009), Lil taught at Shoreacres, Renata and Harrop before joining the staff at Central School in Nelson where she taught until her marriage to Wilfrid Laurier Allan (1894-1938) in 1915. In 1916, the family, including baby Blake, moved to Stavely, Alberta where they ran the Allan family’s general store. They returned to Nelson in 1931 when Wilfrid took on the position of secretary-treasurer for Wood Vallance Hardware upon the retirement of Alex Leith.

Son James Grant Allan was born in 1919, daughter Margo Francis Allan was born in 1921, and son Alexander Arthur Allan was born in 1925. Margo died in Nelson on May 16, 1932.

On September 22, 1938 Wilfrid died in Chicago while undergoing experimental treatment of lung cancer. His brother Alexander Hamilton Allan came from Nelson to assist Lil with funeral arrangements.

Lil proved to be an adept investor of the life insurance she received, and later with proceeds from selling the family home after the three sons were on their own, either at university or in the military. The economy was rebounding from the Depression due largely to increased government spending with war on the horizon. Lil was able to support her three sons through university, with Blake studying arts and law at University of Alberta, Jim in commerce at University of B.C., and Alex in commerce at Queens University.

With Canada at war, there was a shortage of teachers in the region because so many had signed up for military service. Lil thought she could serve her country and region by renewing her teaching career. The need appeared to be particularly pressing in isolated communities in the region which could only be reached by boat, as access roads did not exist in the mountainous terrain.

Over the next dozen years she taught in the Lardeau district, Kaslo, Argenta, Central School in Nelson, and then retired after the 1953-54 school year at Renata (which saw its end as an Arrow Lakes settlement when it was flooded in the late 1960s by the Columbia River Treaty power projects).

Throughout her life Lil maintained her curiosity and love of learning, which led to extensive travels in Europe and North America. I last saw her in a visit with my father to her at the Willowhaven Nursing Home six miles north of Nelson.

by Sam McBride

A Facebook group I regularly participate in is a forum for discussion and analysis of the content of old family photographs. Participants include people with knowledge of clothes, hairstyles and other clues to help identify the approximate year the photo was taken.

I have long been curious about a photo that was in my grandfather E.E.L. “Ted” Dewdney’s memorabilia with no identification except information on the back of the print saying it was taken at a Victoria, B.C. studio. I checked online and saw that the studio was in operation periodically between the 1860s and 1890s.

There were actually two copies of the printed photograph in Ted’s material, which led me to suspect the lady was of substantial importance to Ted. As his mother, Caroline Leigh Dewdney (1851-1885) died when Ted was just four years old, I thought the lady in the photo may have been her. I have no identified image of my great-grandmother Caroline, who was often referred to in family papers as “Carrie”. Her father William Leigh (1815-1884) was born in Warwickshire, England, and arrived in Victoria as an employee of the Hudson Bay Company in about 1855. His wife Matilida Capron accompanied him in the long journey from England to Panama, across to the Pacific, and sailing from there north to Victoria. Their four children with them included toddler Carrie. William worked as a builder and farm manager before working for the City of Victoria as city clerk for 20 years until his death in 1884.

After I submitted the photo for consideration by the Facebook group, the first comment was that the image looks more like a painting than a photograph. It was probably painted in full colour and photographed by the studio. Several other respondent expressed agreement that it is an image from a painting. Estimates of the year of the painting, based on clothes and hair, were in the 1840s, before Carrie was born. That led someone to suggest that perhaps the lady was Carrie’s mother Matilida, who I also have no identified images for. An intriguing thought. The lesson is to be careful not to go too far in assuming things in family history.

I was in Victoria for a vacation recently, and happened to be staying at a hotel on James Bay, close to Dallas Road where the Leigh and Dewdney families lived in the pioneer years of the city. I imagined the lady in the photo being on the same beaches and pathways you see there still today. And perhaps residing in, or visiting, one of the heritage houses that go back well into the 1800s.

by Sam McBride

In more than 30 years of exploring my family history I have made some fascinating discoveries, but nothing tops finding out my grandmother Winnifred Mae McBride (1889-1960) was a pioneer in ladies ice hockey as a young lady in Nelson, British Columbia. I was even more surprised to learn that she alternately played forward and goalie positions on the 1911 Nelson Ladies Hockey Team coached by Lester Patrick, who, with his brother Frank, had a huge role in establishing professional hockey and the National Hockey League.

Known then as Winnie Foote, she also served as secretary-treasurer of the team, where her work included liaising with her counterpart in Rossland in organizing home-and-away hockey matches and social events between the Nelson and Rossland ladies hockey teams.

I don’t recall hearing my dad Leigh ever saying that his mother, who he referred to as “Win”, played hockey in her youth. These matches, often combined with games between men’s and junior teams, attracted hundreds of spectator and were a big winter event in the two communities. Two Patrick sisters, Dora and Cynda, were also on the Nelson team, with Cynda being team captain.

The Patricks came to Nelson in 1907 when their father Joe Patrick acquired a sawmill at South Slocan, near the junction of the Slocan River and Kootenay River, about half-way between Nelson and Castlegar. When not playing hockey in Nelson or elsewhere, Lester and Frank helped out at their father’s business called Patrick Lumber. Conveniently located next to rail service that took the products to market, Patrick Lumber proved to be a very profitable operation, despite a near disaster in June 1909 when spring flooding on the Slocan River broke a boom containing logs before processing, with a large number of logs floating away down the Kootenay and Columbia rivers. Lester and Frank were able to retrieve many of the loose logs, but quite a few were claimed by “finders-keepers” or went across the border into the U.S.

When the Patricks arrived in 1907 Nelson’s hockey arena located high uphill at Stanley and Houston streets had poor facilities for players as well as spectators. They became a leading part of a civic drive to build a new arena near the intersection of Hall Mines Road and Cottonwood Creek. Joe, Lester and Frank Patrick all served on the fund-raising committee, along with prominent local businessmen like J. Fred Hume, Wood Vallance Hardware manager Walter McBride and his nephew Roland Leigh McBride (1881-1959), who would marry Winnie in December 1914. The first Nelson Daily News report of the organization of the fund-raising committee said R.L. McBride was elected president of the committee, but a couple of days later the newspaper ran a correction notice saying Walter McBride was elected president, not his nephew. My guess is that the uncle thought it would be more appropriate for the higher-up Wood Vallance man to hold the position.

In any event, my grandfather R.L. McBride did most of the work and established a reputation for successful fund-raising for community projects, which later included local hospitals, the Nelson Golf Club and the Nelson Civic Centre, as well as bond sale drives in both world wars, particularly World War Two when his two sons Leigh and Ken served as officers with the Seaforth Highlanders of Canada regiment in the Italian campaign.

Originally from Perth, Ontario, the Foote family moved west to the Nelson area in 1900 when Win’s father Jim Foote began a job as blacksmith at the Silver King Mine. After living in the townsite next to the mine for two years, the family moved into Nelson in 1902 when Jim got a job with the City of Nelson construction department. Their home was a rented house also described as being near the the intersection of Hall Mines Road and Cottonwood Creek. While the terrain changed substantially due to the highway interchange work in the 1970s, the location today of the long-gone 1909 arena and Foote house is around the area where the Alpine Inn is located.

A great source of information on early men’s and ladies hockey in Nelson is the book “Knights of Winter: the History of Ice Hockey in B.C. Between 1895 and 1911” by Craig Bowlsby, which is based on information in local archives and newspapers of the time. He notes that Winnie Foote had also played for the Nelson Ladies Team in 1910, when the group photo of the team was taken in a Nelson studio. Her younger sister Gladys Edith Foote (1894-1965) also tried out for the Nelson team in 1911, but did not make the team. I remember hearing that “Glad”, as she was known, was an excellent ice skater.

A valuable part of Bowlsby’s book is an index of the names of everyone who was ever played hockey in B.C. up to 1911. The listings include R.L. McBride playing a couple of years for the Wood Vallance team in a Nelson industrial league. His cousin Chester McBride (son of Walter) is listed as being captain of several Rossland rep teams in the late 1890s. My other grandfather, E.E.L. “Ted” Dewdney is listed as playing several years in the early 1900s for the Bank of Montreal team in a league of teams of the banks in Rossland. While Ted was quite athletic, his sport was tennis, not hockey.

The newspaper reports of games between Nelson and Rossland ladies usually ended up with Rossland winning by one goal. The Daily News noted that Rossland with its higher elevation had an advantage over Nelson in hockey because their rinks were much less likely to get mushy due to periods of warm temperatures in the winter months.

I remember Win in her final years being in poor health. Rather than talking with her grandchildren about the past, she always wanted to play bingo with us. She never got over the shock of her younger son Kenneth Gilbert McBride (1920-1944) being killed in action in Italy. Her obituary in June 1960 mentioned several service organizations she belonged to, but, sadly, nothing about the her fun days with the Nelson Ladies Hockey Team.

The park at South Slocan (approximately half way between Nelson and Castlegar) has information displays about the Patrick family that had a huge impact on the history of ice hockey. Also has fascinating structures that remain from the Patrick sawmill.