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THE HOUSE THAT GERTRUDE BUILT After having planned it, financed it and built it, I think it must have rankled more than a little to hear her home referred to as "John Lawson's house" even though it had been home to both her mother and father from the day it was finished until their deaths. For, while her father had, before the Great War, entertained the notion of constructing a fine dwelling costing in the neighbourhood of $20,000.00 and featuring a sweeping staircase as seen in ante bellum mansions, it was never built. Maybe what gave John Lawson the idea in the first place was the cache of stone he had squirreled away for the exterior of his dream house - stone that had come all the way from New Zealand as ship's "ballast". Ultimately, that stone would grace "the house that Gertrude built" but not before an Armistice, a time of peace, and the eve of another war. The concept of the house was simple - to provide a building of substance offering comfortable living quarters to "gentle women" who had seen better days. The rent would be kept reasonable, sufficient to cover the expense of upkeep. By the time the late 30s rolled around, Gertrude was busy at the drafting board sketching a residence, a modified version of a Scottish castle. Initially, she had recruited three other teachers to join in the venture, Mabel MacFie, Ethel Millard and Elizabeth Fry but as the rumblings of war grew louder, the resolve of her colleagues grew fainter until finally, they withdrew from the project completely leaving Gertrude to go it alone. And she did. In fact, when the financial papers were drawn up, hers was the first mortgage to be granted to a woman in British Columbia, and it was her teacher's salary that paid it off. In 1938, after hurdling zoning restrictions, the many-roomed house began to take shape on the southeast corner of 17th Street and Esquimalt. It was completed a year later but without the studio suite the original blue prints called for. The studio wing was to have been built north of the front door and would have extended westwards towards 17th Street. In all other respects, the house was as planned. Heat was provided by an "iron fireman" and the house being well insulated stayed warm in winter and cool in sunmer. The stone exterior was the work of Vem Winger who had submitted a very attractive bid for the job since he intended it to serve as a testimonial to his masonry skills. The New Zealand "ballast" together with some pastel coloured rocks selected at random, but with care, by Winger from local creeks and beaches, secured those who dwelt within .... and there were many, usually a dozen or so at any given time. Between the years 1943 and '45, for example John Lawson's sister, Mrs. Hart, had a suite in the basement; Gertrude, her parents and a Miss Leonard were on the main floor; and up on the top were three married couples and three children. Undaunted by numbers, Gertrude always managed to make her tenants feel like family. Many of them even used her kitchen to do their cooking. When John Kirk took Betty Vickery as his bride and came to live at "the house that Gertrude built", the wedding reception was held in the living room, for which there was no charge, and later, when John was off work due to an injury, Gertrude refused to accept a rental payment - her way of thanking Betty for the help received in sewing finicky crepe paper bonnets and fichues for her Hollybum School thespians who were putting on a play about United Empire Loyalists. Gertrude loved to have parties and for these she would prepare the food and stay up late enjoying the dancing. She certainly had dancing in mind when she designed the over-sized ground floor living room with its pegged oak floors made to look like planks and big enough to accommodate two to three sets of Scottish dancers. Off to the side in a small raised area, a pianist provided the music