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February 2000 West Vancouver Historical Society Page 7 LIFE WAS WONDERFUL: A PERSONAL MEMOIR By: Margaret Sawyer The following is a submission from Margaret Sawyer (nee Hilborn), a West Vancouver Historical Society member and past resident. At the urging of a friend, and in response to pleas from History-Onics editors to the membership for people to share their memories of West Vancouver, Margaret decided to put pen to paper and began "jotting down the following memories of growing up in West Vancouver." We appreciate her taking the time to do so and look forward to additional "instalments." I was bom in Vancouver in 1924 and within a few months of my birth my parents decided to raise their family in the "wilds" of West Vancouver. They found themselves attracted to the beauty of the North Shore, with its many summer cottages dotting the landscape from Fisherman's Cove to Ambleside. It was rather isolated in those days: no Lions Gate bridge with its mshing traffic, no luxury homes, no malls, no tall waterfront buildings, no busy highways and certainly very few cars. Access by car was by way of the old and very narrow Second Narrows bridge (also a railway bridge) or the North Vancouver car ferry from the foot of Columbia to the foot of Lonsdale. If you happened to enter West Vancouver after 1:00 a.m. at the Capilano Bridge boundary, you may have been met by one of Police Chief Charles Hailstone's constables, who would politely ask you to state your business! My Dad was a builder by trade and, with his service as a pilot in the Royal Flying Corps behind him, he was more than happy to settle into this budding community to pursue his love of building homes. He first rented, for $20.00 a month, a small cottage heated by means of a wood and coal stove. Within a year he began building our first home on a property near the waterfront at 23 rd and Bellevue which he had purchased for $300.00... [and] there used to be a nearly block long field of buttercups a few steps down the street. Life was wonderful for growing children then, as all of West Vancouver was their personal playground. We hippety-hopped along on the wooden sidewalks to the local shops, our favourite of course being Mrs. Freeman's penny candy "heaven." That enormous woman's patience matched her girth as we made our ponderous decisions on spending the precious five cents on (a) chocolate covered cinnamon bears, or (b) all day suckers, or (c) licorice pipes. (continued on page 8) Above: West Vancouver Municipal Ferry Bus. The chassis and body of this bus was built by the staff of the Municipal Transport Dept. This photo is prior to 1922 - note the right hand drive. (Image courtesy of the West Vancouver Memorial Library)