The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

HISTORy-ONICS VOL 21 May NO. 5 2004 The Newsletter of the West Vancouver Historical Society Editor’s Notes This may be the most important item in the entire newsletter. We are delighted to welcome a new member to the Society’s board of directors in the person of Carol Howie. Carol is unswervingly committed to doing whatever she can to preserve the history and heritage of the community, more in deed than in word. She is a dedicated archives volunteer who lives in a heritage house. She has accepted the job as our liaison with the Heritage Advisory Committee. One would be hard pressed to find a candidate more suitable than Carol. We had the best possible response to our appeal for information about history of St. Francis-in-the Wood. Long- time archives and historical society volunteer Susan Dirasser said she’d be pleased to helpâ€"and help she did, giving up several hours of her time leafing through old minutes, programmes and photos. Additional help came from Ellen Luccock, the Church Secretary, who did the necessary photocopying, and also provided additional follow-up detail on the material Susan was able to garner. And there were interesting responses to “Ambleside Addresses”, which appeared in the last issue. These listings come directly from city directories of the day, which were often inaccurate. (It seems that the older they are the less reliable they are.) In times past the word informality characterized the assigning of street addresses. Homeowners often guessed at the house number and simply put it up. Even though our house on Ottawa Avenue was three lots in from the end of the street, we Just put up “1495” because it was the last house on the street. That number was in the phone directory for decades. Today, the house on the cornerâ€"the end of the 1400-blockâ€"is 1491, and has been since George Wong built it more than 40 years ago. By the way, 1495 is now 1479. On May 19"’ I had the pleasure of attending a ceremony in honour of a donation by local Scouts, when a tree was planted at the Municipal Hall, on the corner of 17"' Street and Esquimau Avenue. Mayor Ron Wood tossed the Erst shovel of soil on to the roots of a new Magnolia kobus tree, and also unveiled two plaques: the original plaque commemorating the first planting in 1935, and a new plaque honouring the Scouts’ continuing support for the 17"’ Street trees. Two of the 1935 scouts were presentâ€"Jack Ley land and Jim Green. Also present was Katie Dickinson (See page 4!). An item kept long enough occasionally becomes a “collect- ible” or even an antique. About three months ago I attempted to have someone remove a no-longer-usable photocopier which has been occupying valuable space in the Society working area on the top floor of the Lawson House. I perhaps should not have made the request. This old Xerox looks nothing like today’s models. It’s like comparing a crys- tal set to an FM mulitiplex radio. It could very well be a collectible, and that the man who said he’d remove it doesn’t want the Society to lose something that’s been increasing in value. In the meantime it’s taking up valuable working space. Please turn to page 5 Annual General Meeting - Thursday, May 26, 2004 at 7:00 pm West Van Seniors Centre, 695 21st Street This meeting promises to be both informative and enter- taining. Our member in charge of getting speakers and en- tertainment, Bud Langley, has been fortunate in obtaining the services of a highly acclaimed singing group. The Van- couver Thunderbirds. These are well respected musical en- tertainers who will eschew the likes of Pergolesi and Pearl Jam and instead entertain you with something in between. These singers are the best and so will be saved for last. The first and likely the briefest part of the meeting will be the election of officers for 2004-2005. (The incumbent will not be offended if someone else is nominated from the floor.) This past year has been an interesting one, so there is every possibility that the president’s report will be interesting as well. You may be sure of one thing: it will be brief. Please mark May 26th down on your calendar. MORE ABOUT THIS ITEM LATER The death occurred Monday, April 12th of the uncommonly talented ex-West Van High student Norman Campbell. We’ll have more to say about him in the next issue of the newslet- ter. Part of that story will include Robin Martin, who, along with Joy (Zemel) Long, were extensively involved in stu- dent theatrical productions at Inglewood.