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June 1999 West Vancouver Historical Society Pages OLD STORIES - OURS AND YOURS Barbara Johnson has decided to say "goodbye" to us. (See page 4) - But, life is strange and when one door closes often another one opens! Very shortly after Barbara decided to retire, one of our members, Patricia Anderson, approached me at the June meeting and offered to write an article or two for forthcoming issues of "History-Onics". Needless to say I was delighted to accept her offer. Her article, the first of two on the subject of cherishing memories, appears below. THE FINE ART OF REMEMBERING Patricia J. Anderson, Ph.D,, is an author and historian who gives workshops and private consultations on memoir writing and other literary projects. Part 1: Cottages by the Sea Browsing through shops along Bellevue and Marine. Strolling (or power-walking) the seawall. Lingering over coffee and the news at a village cafe. In these commonplaces of leisure time in West Vancouver are echoes of the days when it was a vacation resort, a cluster of cottages by the sea. A community heritage, the cottages belong to our shared history - some of us can also proudly claim one in our personal past. The cottage in my own background was my parent's home from 1947 to 1948, the first year of their marriage. It dates back to 1919. Tiny even by earlier standards, it is now all the more dwarfed as it nestles among mature growth and the newer, larger houses nearby. The miracle to me is that it still stands, when so many of its kind have vanished from the landscape. Some of the old cottages, of course, enjoy a measure of lingering existence in archival photographs or snapshots in family albums, but others, like so much of our past, are simply long gone. What remains is memory, our individual and collective defense against the breaches in our history. Remembering can be a pleasurable meandering - a doubling back and forth in time, lingering on this, skipping that. But if the greater imperative is to preserve the past, then a stricter regimen is needed. "The true art of memory", said Samuel Johnson, "is the art of attention". The richest memories are made of details attentively recalled, one built upon another - as it once took shingles, boards, and nails to build those summer cottages. Many people are content to leave it at that, but others are taking remembering to the next level and writing it down in the form of personal, family or community memoirs. The "genre de jour" is how more than one leviewo* has described the growing taste for memoir writing and reading. It might sound like a passing trend, but in fact personal and other memoirs have been a mainstay of the publishing industry for the past decade and continue in popularity. No wonder, since more and more of us appreciate the value of recording - and preserving - both our personal and cultural heritage. In Part II of this article, I will present some basic guidelines for planning, writing, and publishing your memoirs. In the end, the most carefiilly gathered memories are transitory, writing them down preserves them, and helps ensure that our past will live on - that it will not share the fate of the lost cottages by the sea. Update on our Heritage Inventory The Heritage Commission of West Vancouver is in the process of updating the various Heritage Inventories, produced some years ago, which included houses, commercial buildings and landscapes (including trees of historical interest). At the beginning of the Society's June general meeting, Elspeth Bradbury and Tyke Babylos of the West Vancouver Heritage Advisory Commission showed us slides of various houses, commercial buildings, trees and landscapes, which are well known, and much beloved, to many of us. Trees especially have a much larger impact upon the landscape than perhaps we have generally realised and, when Elspeth asked us to imagine certain gardens or wayside comers without these beautiful specimens being present, the audience grew very thoughtful. So, the request goes out once again to the Society membership - if you have a special favourite in buildings or landscapes which you consider to be of importance to West Vancouver, please contact Joel Lawson at the Municipal Hall with yom suggestions. They may be included in the next West Vancouver Heritage Inventories.