Saturday Night Genealogy Fun - What Did Your Father Love To Do?

It’s Saturday and Randy at Genea-Musings has issued his weekly challenge to his readers. With Father’s Day tomorrow, Randy asks, “What did your father really like to do in his work or spare time? Did he have hobbies, or a workshop, or did he like sports, or reading, or watching TV?”

Dad was a welder by trade and worked all over Ontario and Quebec, Canada, from the early 1950s until about 1979. He really liked this kind of work and he was very good at it, too. After we moved to British Columbia in 1979, Dad welded mostly for himself (like repairs on his MACK dump truck), but also for neighbors when they asked for his help with a project.

Trucking was Dad’s second favorite job, whether it was in partnership with his brother Ray building roads in the mountains between Hope and Boston Bar (here in B.C.) in the 1980s or when he drove snow plow trucks for the local highways department in the winter months to supplement his income.

Dad didn’t belong to service or sports clubs, not because he didn’t think they weren’t worthwhile, but because he liked the freedom to choose what he wanted to do and when he wanted to do it.

In the 1960s, Dad liked fishing, particularly for doré (I think it's walleye in English), abundant in Ontario where we lived. He had the usual gear, like fishing rods, reels, and tackle. What I liked best of all that stuff were the fly lures. At six or seven years old, I found their multi-coloured feathers pretty to look at, but nasty if I accidently pricked myself with a barbed hook.

Dad discovered the fun of CB radios in the 1970s. He was quite the enthusiast and bought himself a base station, desk mic, and an antenna tower.

When Dad more or less retired from trucking in the 1990s, he took up metal detecting. He treasure-hunted everywhere, from the field across the road by our house, to English Bay beach in Vancouver. When he and Mom travelled in the summer, Dad made sure his metal detector went with him.

Metal detecting at English Bay, Vancouver (1996)

Copyright © 2018, Yvonne Demoskoff.

Friday’s Faces from the Past: Desgroseilliers Visitors

Lucille and Ovila Desgroseilliers

Mom’s relatives Ovila and Lucille (Potvin) Desgroseilliers and Florence (Renaud) (Desgroseilliers) Labelle visited our home in Hope, British Columbia in the summer of 1990. Ovila was a younger brother of Mom’s father Eugène Desgroseilliers, while Florence was the widow of Eugène’s youngest brother Joseph.

Florence Labelle

They spent two days with us before they went on to visit Florence’s son Albert in Vancouver.

The pictures were taken in our living room on 4 August 1990.

Copyright © 2015, Yvonne Demoskoff.

Wedding Wednesday: Belair – Murphy

On a summer’s day sixty-three years ago, my uncle Ray married Emily Murphy. Their marriage took place on 8 August 1952 at the Anglican church in Chilliwack, British Columbia.

Ray was the younger son of my grandparents Fred and Julie (Vanasse) Belair, while Emily was a daughter of William and Emily (Grisenthwaite) Murphy. Emily was born and raised in B.C., but Ray was originally from Ontario, although born in Montreal. My uncle came west in the early 1950s and settled near the village (now town) of Hope, about two hours east of Vancouver.

I don’t have a picture of Ray and Emily’s wedding, but the above photo is part of a series of the earliest photos of them as a couple in my parents’ old albums. Ray and Emily are on the right and pose with his parents. The picture was taken in December 1957 when they visited his parents Fred and Julie at their home in Timmins, Ontario.

Copyright © 2015, Yvonne Demoskoff.

Sunday’s Obituary: Emily Belair

My aunt Emily Belair passed away 34 years ago on 8 October 1980 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

Emily was a daughter of William and Emily (Grisenthwaite) Murphy. Born on 2 November 1934 in Chilliwack, British Columbia, Emily grew up east of there in the small settlement of Laidlaw, on the outskirts of the town of Hope.

In August 1952, Emily married Ray Belair, my father’s younger brother. The couple made their home on a property in Laidlaw, and had two children, Janet Rae (Jenny) and Leo. My cousin Leo is still with us, but Jenny died in 2011 (her obituary can be read here) and Uncle Ray passed away just last month.

Emily’s funeral service took place six days later in Chilliwack, and she was laid to rest there in the Anglican Cemetery.

Source:

“Mrs. Belair Laid to Rest Tuesday”, funeral notice, 15 October 1980, The Hope Standard (Hope, British Columbia); p. 1, cols. 7-8.

Copyright © 2014, Yvonne Demoskoff.

Ray Belair (1931-2014)

Another link with the past was broken today when my Uncle Ray, age 83, passed away this morning.

Born on 19 January 1931 in Montreal, Quebec, Ray was a younger son of Fred and Julie (Vanasse) Belair. He was my late father Maurice’s only surviving brother.

Ray (left) with Maurice, 1950s

As a young man, Ray left his parents and his home in Timmins, Ontario to seek his fortune in western Canada. He arrived in British Columbia about 1950, where he found logging work in and around Hope, a small community about two hours east of Vancouver.

In August 1952, Uncle Ray married local girl Emily Murphy. They had two children, my cousins Janet (known as Jenny) and Leo.

Uncle Ray was instrumental in getting my father to move to B.C. in 1979 to work with him. They formed a joint business in which they built logging roads, mostly in the Boston Bar area north of Hope. Accordingly, Dad packed up his belongings, put up our family home for sale, and drove ahead of us to get started. We followed Dad within a few weeks, after our house was sold.

Ray with his family, 1960s

In October 1980, Uncle Ray lost his wife Emily, to whom he had been married for twenty-eight years. Their daughter Jenny died in February 2011.

After working at logging and road-building for most of his life, Uncle Ray retired in September 1997. His sister Joan and her son André made the trip to B.C. to help Ray celebrate.

Uncle Ray is survived by his son Leo and his family, including a new little great-granddaughter, as well as his sisters Joan and Darlene of Ontario, Canada.

We will miss you, Uncle Ray. Rest in peace.

Copyright © 2014, Yvonne Demoskoff.

Those Places Thursday: The Hope Slide, 49 years ago

“The Hope slide, near Hope, British Columbia. Image by Fawcett5, August, 2005.”
(Image in public domain, Wikipedia)

In the early morning of 9 January 1965, a small avalanche occurred in the Nicolum Valley, near Hope, in southwestern British Columbia. Three vehicles travelling on this stretch of Highway 3 (known locally as the Hope-Princeton Highway) came upon the debris, preventing them from going further. While they waited on the road, a second, deadly slide struck when a massive amount of rock came down Johnson Peak, destroying its southwestern face.

It was the “largest landslide ever recorded in Canada […] estimated at 47 million cubic metres […] of pulverized rock, mud, and debris 85 metres (279 ft) deep and 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) wide, which came down the 2,000-metre (6,600 ft) mountainside”. [1]

Four people – the waiting travellers – were killed in their cars and trucks. Rescuers recovered two bodies; the other two “have remained entombed under the rock since 1965”. [2]

My parents and my sister and I must have seen the Slide when we drove through BC during our summer vacation in 1966, but I don’t remember it. The next time I saw the devastation was in May 1980, a few months after my family moved to Hope.

A video of what the area looks like today is available at Hope Slide.

Here are some pictures I took during my 1980 visit to the Hope Slide. I’ve been back to the site a few times since that year. The landscape hasn’t really changed; it’s still quiet, bleak and desolate-looking.

The valley floor, looking east (1980)

Information board explaining the events of that fateful day (1980)

Looking east, with my brother in the centre pointing to the mountain (1980)

A northeast view, with my father and his friend Paul (1980)

Sources:

1. Wikipedia contributors, "Hope Slide," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hope_Slide&oldid=585452999 : accessed January 8, 2014).

2. Wikipedia contributors, "Hope Slide," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.

Copyright © 2014, Yvonne Demoskoff.