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Page 8 WEST VANCOUVER HISTORICAL SOCIETY June 1997 6RCHIVES CORNER Mary Chapman, Archives Volunteer Coordinator Boys Will Be Boys With the marriage vows completed Reverend Dingle drew the happy couple closer and, “for their ears only,” offered his words of wisdom - “Men are little boys all their lives - etc.” What fodder for the grinning groom who for the next 42 years never failed to remind me about that sage advice, and now 56 years later those words flashed before me as I searched for some information about the Kinsmen Club of Canada in the West Vancouver Archives. Two news clippings brought back all the memories of the good-natured fun they put into every charitable venture they undertook and one of the earliest of such was to build a 5-room house with all donated material, use of members’ time, value of house was $4000, and would be raffled in August 1942. The biggest hurdle would be to obtain property for such a venture. A delegation of the West Vancouver Kinsmen Club’s best performers appeared before the West Van Council and in true Kinsmen style won the Council’s hearts. With loud cheering from both the gallery and members of Council the President of the West Vancouver Kinsmen Club was able to pay in “full”, the asking price of One Dollar for the tax-sale lot at 21st and Haywood. The second news clipping showed long-legged Frances Rondin Sally baring her posterior for all to see, being fondled by Mayor J.W. Cornett of Vancouver. The Mayor was using all the “pull” he could muster to outsquirt his opponent Reeve R.J. Sears and Cleo’s Pride. West Vancouver's Reeve Sears was moo-ing vociferously that Cleo was “dry” as he wasn’t able to produce enough to drown a gnat - by now you have probably guessed that this was a “milking competition” and was part of the days entertainment at Vancouver’s Athletic Park where many other zany activities were taking place as well as a baseball game between Salem and Capilano. Edit Note: Salem won! It was at these festivities that the winning ticket for the West Vancouver Kinsmen’s House was drawn by little 2 year-old Yolande Healy, an English evacuee who had been staying with her great-uncle and aunt Mr. & Mrs. Frank A. Walker of 2337 Lawson Ave; Yolande’s mother being one of the leading actresses on the British stage. And the winner of the house? Sebastian Amann, an Austrian shipyard worker, a bachelor from Edmonton, residing on Vancouver’s Powell Street. This was one of the biggest crowds that had ever thronged Athletic Park and many more such events took place during the War years all for the “Milk For Britain” Fund, a joint effort by all Kinsmen Clubs across Canada, to provide milk for the bombed out and starving’ children of Britain. At “a dime a quart” many thousands of gallons of milk were sent in the form of powdered milk so that every child in need would receive its daily quart of body-building, health-restoring fluid. I know that many in West Vancouver feel the loss of our local Kinsmen Club, with its young and vigourous members with lots of “boy-power in them and for my part I can assure you that their kind of fun is what we need these days. Archives Acquisition Creates Volunteer Project By.- oavui wardu. An Opportunity to Catalogue a Collection of Architects Building Drawings Community Records Archivist One of the most common requests for information received by archivists in community archives centres around the history and background of residential homes. Different sources of information can be very useful when documenting the history of a house or building. City directories can trace the occupants of addresses, assessment rolls list owners and photographs show how a building once appeared. Researchers also search for architectural plans, especially when they are planning renovations to a house that are to keep with its original appearance. The West Vancouver Archives is no different; we field questions about when homes were built and who built them, etc. Recently I was contacted by Carla Barraclough, the widow of D.O. Barraclough, a house designer whose work can be seen in the greater Vancouver area, including West Vancouver. The homes he designed were often simple ranch homes with a low one storey structure with a wide eaved hip roof clad with cedar shakes, and clapboard siding. One of his designs was included in the survey of significant architecture constructed after World War Two; the Heal residence at 4875 Water Lane. Mrs. Barraclough wanted to donate what she called a ‘few’ of her late husband’s plans. I quickly agreed as the archives held no house plans and such a resource could be very useful in the future. Within a few days, the plans arrived at the archives and they turned out to be more than a few, a great deal more. The donation consists of approximately 400 drawings and plans, a sizable collection made all the more significant for its completeness. But like other archival materials, it requires processing if it going to be useful to researchers. This requires examining the plans and listing a variety of information about it; the type of plan, when it was drafted, where the house was built and who commissioned the plan are just some examples. This group of records would make a very interesting project for a volunteer interested in architectural plans and buildings in general. If you are interested in working on the Barraclough papers, please contact David Wardle at the West Vancouver Museum and Archives, 925-7298.