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March 1995 WESTVANCOUVERHISTORICALSOCIETY Page 3 AND THIS IS THE WAY IT WAS By: Florry Corbett Mitchell ‘How Wonderful It Was â€" Like Living in a Perfect Time’ Look out at the falling snow. The trees are beautiful, the branches hardly supporting bear claws, clumps of snow. It’s quiet, peaceful - the tea is hot as I sit sipping it. Of course 1 remember glimpses of my early childhood days in Boston, Massachusetts, where I was bom, but I was only four when my parents crossed Canada by train to live in West Vancouver. It was the summer of 1919 and we lived for a few months in a cottage at Ambleside Beach. There were boards part way up and a canvas top. This was adequate for the summer months, but in those early years the winters could be very cold. My father bought a small house near the Hollybum School and it was there I grew up, going to school and making many Mends. In the summer, taking peanut-butter sandwich and an apple, we spent long hours on the beach. We went bare-foot across the barnacles to the sand-bar, making huge sand castles or digging for clams. We found logs and paddled about. We learned to swim in the cold salt water. Sometimes we fished from the ferry wharf for bass and bull-heads. Sometimes we were allowed a round trip on the Sonrisa, No. 5, Hollybum or No. 6, and we always chose a rough and choppy sea to do this. We picked wild roses along the railroad track. The whole of Ambleside was our playground. Remember that this was during the Depression years. There was very little money and so our pleasures were simple. A Saturday morning could be spent fashioning and putting together a kite that, when it was finished, would or would not, fly. There were heavy snowfalls; not just flurries like you see today, but weeks of snow. We would build igloos, snowmen, go sleigh riding and come home wet and cold, our hands tingling, and huddle round the big coal and wood stove in our kitchen, and thaw out. We knew everyone around, and after school, if anyone would let me wheel their baby up and down, they were my Mend. We all knew the trails and skid roads. West Vancouver was a magical place and we explored it all. We clambered over “Baby Mountain”, now known as Sentinel Hill, and picked the tiny blackberries, filling our Rogers Golden Symp tins and knowing there would be a pie for supper. There was love in our home and my brothers and sister and I grew up, most content, listening to the wonderful records of John McCormack, Richard Crooks and Caruso on our Edison Gramophone. It was indeed a happy childhood and my memories of it are most vivid even today. Even though there was little money then and shoes had to wait their turn for re-soling, the dollars were stretched, and we managed. When my Dad’s ferry ticket was punched for the last ride we somehow always found the $2 for a new one. Have you ever stood, in awe, at the candy counter? Fbr the five cents clutched tightly in your hand Mr. Normand would fill a paper sack with gumdrops, caramels, the brittle chocolate covered teddy bears and a licorice whip. All the stores were familiar around the Ambleside area. There was McGowan’s Tea Room at the ferry wharf where each half hour, as the ferry docked, we would see Mends going to Vancouver or coming home to the North Shore. You could pass Stratten’s Bakery and the aroma of fresh baked bread would sweep up your nostrils. There was McCue’s Drugstore at the comer of 14th and Marine. There was Jefferies’ Meat Market where we sent every Saturday for a roast of beef, around $1. So often it cost $1.10 or $1.15 when weighed out, and that was a concern at times. Next door to Jefferies’ was the Hollybum Theatre, managed by Mr. Fletcher. We would sit through the matinee, spell bound and fascinated by the continued-next-week episodes. Continued on Page 9 - See *A Perfect Time* A Tale of Two Pigs m It was the West Van Number 5 Which sailed Burrard that day And on it sailed two suckling pigs, Fred Hadwin’s buy, they say. He set sack down, the top came loose. Sack tipped, pigs ran, folks chased, ’Twas lucky pigs weren’t drowned that day. At last they were encased. Fred carried heavy bag back home Where family cried with glee: “How sweet: How cute:” the kids exclaimed, “Let’s name them, what - shall be?” So “Sam’, ‘Seline”, pigs were called They ate all day all night. Till huge they grew - and cranky too -With everyone they’d fight. At last, when pigs were fat and fit The butcher came on scene. The kids left home while deed was done -But Pork Roasts: Bacon: keen! So Rest in Peace both Sam, Seline, Your growing days are o’er. Your story’s part of West Van’s past And pigs are here no more. By: Barbara Johnson Sam and Seline resided at 10th and I A €\ Mathers in 1922, the property of Fred and Janet Hadwin, parents of Barbara Johnson.