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It was a Thursday full of woe when, on the morning of October 18th, the building virtually burned to the ground. Left standing, like a movie set facade was the front wall and, completely untouched, as though nothing untoward had happened, was the venerable, orange sign: Ferguson Moving & Storage. There are a few oldtimers still kicking around from the Depression days who refer to it as "the Orange Hall" for that was its beginning. The corner stone of Loyal Orange Lodge 2990 was laid on March 29th, 1930 by the Right Worshipful Grand Master William T. Jago of Coquitlam. It was no secret that a number of articles - not exactly with the status of a time capsule but interesting, nevertheless, were stashed away in the north east corner of the building and poked into place with a silver trowel. So, although the disaster of the fire was met with genuine dismay, it was a relief to find the front of the building very much intact. The proper authorities were alerted as to the Historical Society's quest but, despite our efforts, the wall came tumbling down and whatever the cache contained, it was lost forever. Paul Reano, the present owner of Ferguson's has been an outstanding supporter of our Society - not only one of our earliest corporate members, but one of our most generous with donations to our Capital Fund. We sincerely hope that "Fergie 1" will be able to rebuild on the same site and should there be another cornerstone laying ceremony, the Historical Society would be delighted to participate. All David Wilson has to do is ask his Mother for Grampa's silver trowel. "SAVE SOMETHING FOR A RAINY DAY" .... which is just what Rotaract did, and then, on a wet, Sunday afternoon (Oct. 28th) they gave it all to us. The 'it' was a large donation both in size and amount. Rotaract President, Leanne Jacobs, could scarcley hold up her end of the 3’ x 6' cheque made out to the Society in the sum of $13,939.50. The money will be spent on the very specialized equipment museums require. It took a querulous shout from the floor to cut short Jack Leyland's discourse on Rotary's involvement with our Society and still have something left for Rotary's President, A1 Hasley, to say. The Rotarians, as some of you may know, put up the initial funding which enabled us to form the Historical Society. Too early and almost too late: - early, was the cluster of guests found milling around the building an hour ahead of time having forgotten to reset their clocks when we switched back to Standard Time the night before; -and almost too late, was Jack Leyland remembering to call artist Georgia Tremaine to the dais where she presented to the Society her stunning, life-like portrait of Christina Lawson (Gertrude's mother). Squeezed in like students in a phone booth, it was impossible to get an accurate count of the turn out but it was IMPRESSIVE. We were especially pleased to see members come all the way from Vancouver Island and at least four of our favourite, old (as in former) teachers. For some of us 'neighbourhood kids' who used to scamper over and through the Gertrude Lawson house when it was under construction, it was a 'first' to be at last, on the inside looking out and, I think, for everybody, it was the first exciting glimpse of what will be - v^ill be. Our grateful thanks to the members of Rotaract and the Rotary Club, to Georgia Tremaine and to all the organizers behind the scenes who did such a splendid job. -3-