Trauma and Regeneration

For those of you who are not attending the opening of the play Vimy Ridge on November 2, there is another event the same night which would be very good to attend before seeing the play. Lyle Dick is giving a talk at the Japanese Canadian National Museum. (The info below is from the Museum's web site.)

The Canadian National Vimy Memorial and the Japanese Canadian War Memorial: Landscapes of Trauma and Regeneration Wednesday, November 2, 7pm
Admission by donation

Both the Canadian National Vimy Memorial in France and the Japanese Canadian War Memorial in Vancouver incorporate living memorials to Canada’s war dead following the devastation of the First World War. In their sculptural forms, designed landscapes and vegetation, these memorials symbolically acknowledge the suffering and sacrifice of our fallen soldiers alongside the potential for healing and regeneration, imbuing these sites with enduring resonance and significance.

Lyle Dick is the West Coast Historian with Parks Canada in Vancouver, BC and the author of two award-winning books – Muskox Land (Winner, Harold Innis Prize, 2003), and Farmers “Making Good” (Revised edition 2008, co-winner CHA Clio Prize, 1990). He has delivered nearly 100 public presentations, conference papers and named lectures at universities, museums, libraries, and other venues across North America and in Europe. He is currently the President of the Canadian Historical Association.

Once, again, this talk is at the Japanese Canadian National Museum

#120-6688 Southoaks Crescent Burnaby, BC Canada V5E 4M7

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Hours: 11am-5pm, Tues - Sat (closed Sun, Mon & statutory holidays)
Phone: 604.777.7000

The White Roses: Nurses in WWI

Last night Sheila Zerr and Nan Nartin, members of the BC Nursing History Society, spoke about the role of the Nursing Sisters during WWI. Zerr showed us a stained glass window in Vancouver that features an image of a "bluebird". Her skirt is well above her ankles and she is wearing sturdy boots. The story is that the skirts used to be longer, but they trailed in the mud of the battlefield so the sisters cut them and hemmed them shorter. In this way they are credited for introducing the shorter length of the flapper dresses in the 1920's.

Martin showed us an original cuff from a WWI uniform that is white and goes from the wrist to the elbow. It is detachable so it can be removed and cleaned, in fact it is still faintly blood-stained.

One of the mysteries of the uniform is this white rose at the back of the cape. Does anyone know the story behind this detail? According to Canadian author Gabriele Wills, there is an excellent book about nurses in WWI called The Roses of No Man's Land by Lyn MacDonald. Maybe that book tells the tale. Be sure to check out Gabriele's fantastic page about WWI, including facts about the medical front. You'll see the fabulous photo of Gabriele at the Vimy Memorial which I reproduced in the show in the gallery.

More than 2,800 Canadian Nursing Sisters served with the Canadian Army Medical Corps during the First World War, often close to the front lines of Europe and within range of enemy attack. With their blue dresses and white veils, they were nicknamed the “bluebirds” and were greatly respected because of their compassion and courage.

www.veterans.gc.ca

WWI

• 6 nurses killed in hospital bombings

• 15 killed when their hospital ship, the Llandovery Castle was sunk

• 15 died of contagious diseases such tuberculosis, which killed several other nurses when they returned home

• bluebirds were the first women allowed to vote legally in Canada in a federal election

A Remembrance Day in Afghanistan

Last night's talk on Women in War was the final community dialogue for this project created by the Firehall Arts Centre. We were treated to two nurse historians dressed at WWI Red Cross Nurses telling us about the nursing sisters in the Great War and a nurse currently serving in the Canadian Forces talking about her recent experiences.

Siobhan Annand is a Critical Care Nursing Officer in the Canadian Forces. Officer Annand has twice been deployed to Afghanistan and has also been posted in Haiti helping that country deal with the aftermath of the devastating earthquake. When asked why she enlisted as an emergency nurse of active duty she said, "Because I wanted to be a leader."


Annand showed us a collection of photos of the medical staff in action and during their down time. She deals with the worst cases of trauma by focusing on keeping her patient alive, no matter if they are Canadian, American, Taliban, or Afghan children. "Most of my patients are amputees," she says. "If they are Taliban, I try to make it very hard for them to hate me. Most are extremely grateful for what we do."

Annand showed us pictures of nurses and parents cradling children with severe burns and amputated legs. She described the way the Canadians set up their temporary hospital from the ground up. When a photo of a tarantula in a box came on the screen she said, "Those were our bed bugs." I was very interested in a photo of an American soldier covered in a homemade quilt. Apparently their are clubs in the States that make quilts for American soldiers showing and telling them how much they appreciate their service. When the soldier is in the trauma unit his buddies and the medical staff sign the quilt with indelible markers so that when he wakes up on his way home he can take comfort in this gift. "American soldiers get American blood and Canadian soldiers get Canadian blood," Annand states, but we don't hold back blood from any patient." She explained they have what they call a "walking blood bank"--soldiers who are screened and can donate blood if it's needed.

When Annand showed us a photo of nurses wearing Remembrance Day poppies, I detected emotion in her voice. "We were all ready to observe the moment of silence on the 11th day of the 11th hour and the call came in that more casualties had arrived." She spent the rest of Remembrance Day saving lives.

Annand donated her speaking fee to an organization called Soldier On, which helps rehabilitate ill and wounded soldiers.

Two Views and Asahi Baseball

Japanese Canadian relocation - Women's dormitory
VPL Accession Number: 1492, May 13, 1942. Photographer: Leonard Frank

I traveled to the Surrey Museum to see Two Views, photos of the Japanese internment during WWII in Canada by Leonard Frank and in California by Ansel Adams. What I felt was missing in the show was the voice of the Japanese people themselves. It's important to note that one of the first things taken from the Japanese people after Pearl Harbor was their cameras. Frank was hired to take these photographs as part of his role as official photographer for the Dominion of Canada. Adams went to the camp on his own dime to show how the Japanese people had created a dignified community life in spite of their living conditions and the terrible injustice that had been done to them.

The following eyewitness account is an example of what I felt was needed to contextualize the photographs:

The whole place is impregnated with the smell of ancient manure and maggots. Every other day it is swept with chlorine of lime, or something, but you can't disguise the horse smell, cow smell, sheep, pigs, rabbits and goats. And it is dusty! The toilets are just a sheet metal trough, and up until now they did not have partitions or seats. The women kicked so they put up partitions and a terribly makeshift seat. Twelve year old boys stay with the women too, you know . . . as for the bunks, they were the most tragic things there. Steel and wooden frames with a thin, lumpy straw tick, a bolster and three army blankets . . . no sheets unless you bring your own. These are the "homes" of the women I saw . . . these bunks were hung with sheets and blankets and clothes of every hue and variety--a regular gypsy tent of colours, age, and cleanliness--all hung in a pathetic attempt at privacy. . . an old, old lady was crying, saying she would rather have died than to come to such a place . . . there are ten showers for 1, 500 women.

--Muriel Fujiwara Kitagawa to Wesley Kitagawa, 20 April 1942

The Pacific National Exhibition: An Illustrated History by David Breen and Kenneth Coates

This Sunday, there was a fantastic documentary on the history of baseball in the Japanese- Canadian community before, during and after WWII. I highly recommend listening to the podcast.

Morning Sun:

It was an anniversary that passed with little fanfare. Last month, on September 18th, a group of baseball players gathered in an old park in Vancouver's downtown eastside. They were there to pay their respects to the Asahi, a Japanese-Canadian baseball team that played its last game in the same park 70 years earlier.

There are just a few of those original Asahi players left today. This was perhaps the last chance to thank those men for what they meant to the community. It was also a chance to think about their legacy.

Back in the 20s and 30s, the Asahi was the sporting cornerstone of a bustling neighbourhood, the pride and joy of Japantown. But then the Second World War came ... and then Pearl Harbour ... and Ottawa ordered Japanese-Canadians off Canada's west coast. Twenty-two thousand people of Japanese descent were rounded up and sent to camps in the BC interior. Families were torn apart, and many never returned to the west coast.

Japantown quickly withered and died. And the Asahi baseball team was suddenly no more.

But as you'll hear in John Chipman's documentary, Morning Sun, that wasn't the end of baseball for Canada's Japanese.

--http://www.cbc.ca/thesundayedition/shows/2011/10/23/no-syrian-spring---asahi-baseball---ibsen/

Community Dialogue: Women and War

Join us Monday, October 24, 7pm
in the Peter Kaye Room at the Central Branch Library for Women and War
a Firehall Community Dialogue Session

Women and War
Featuring a presentation by Sheila Zerr and Nan Martin, members of the BC Nursing History Society, about the role of the Nursing Sisters during WWI. Zerr and Martin will speak directly on the history of nursing sisters within the war and the chronology of nurses' roles from original inception into the battle grounds abroad. Both will be dressed in WWI Red Cross Nursing uniforms, one of which was worn at a European Front Hospital.

A Question of Loyalty

During WWII Italians in Vancouver were declared enemy aliens. Some were monitored by the authorities and were required to sign in at their local post office, but 44 Italian men were interned. A local theater company called Bella Luna Productions is in a process of creating a theater piece based on their research into the history of Italians in Vancouver during the second World War. The play is called A Question of Loyalty and it is part of a project the Italian Cultural Centre is creating including an archival show of images and a book by Ray Culos. This all happens in April 2012 and I'm really looking forward to seeing the project because this is part of Vancouver's history which remains a mystery to me.

Today on CBC Radio One's BC Almanac between noon and one pm Mark Forsythe will be talking to Lynne Bowan who wrote a book about called Whoever Gives us Bread: the story of Italians in British Columbia.

It's Up!

The show of photographs of Vancouver during wartime is now up in the lobby of the Firehall. You can pop in and see the show during the day Wednesday through Saturday from 1-5 pm, or check it out when you come to see the play called Vimy by Vern Thiessen. Thanks so much to the folks who helped me hang the show. I ended up choosing to mount and frame photographs from World War II (as opposed to WWI). As I worked on creating the show I became intrigued with the idea that a few of the children in the photos might still be alive today and would be able to tell us their memories of the events portrayed in the show. Also, these people in the photos are the grandparents, parents, uncles and aunts of people who may have more photos and stories of Vancouver during wartime in their own collections. I urge you to talk to your family, ask them about the war and become your own family's archivist so that we don't lose these stories. This show is suitable for families to view together and would be a good place for younger people to learn about the city's history. The show fits into the grade 11 curriculum, but I would say that it is suitable for grade 5 and up.

Of course now that the show is up I will likely find other photos I would have loved to put in the show, so my wish is to keep researching and searching for photos of Vancouver during WWII to create a future project. I am particularly interested in furthering research into Canada's Victory Gardens. I would also be interested in working with schools to create art around the subjects covered in this exhibition.

On Monday night the Firehall organized a fabulous community dialogue around the role of art in war. I outlined the process of creating the exhibition and discussed the role of propaganda in wartime. Rob MacDonald, curator of the Seaforth Highlanders Museum in Vancouver talked about his passion for finding the stories attached to the photographs and objects in the museum. He is an eloquent storyteller and his extensive knowledge of history helps him to unearth the mysteries hidden in the collection. Right now MacDonald and his staff are in the process of digitizing the collection so that families from all over the world can trace photographs of their loved ones. He says he gets a couple of calls every week of people trying to track down photos or information about a family member who served in the Seaforth. You can visit the Seaforth Museum at 1650 Burrard Street on Wednesdays 7:30 to 9 pm, September through April.

We also heard from a painter named Christopher Baird Hennebery. Chris studied painting at Emily Carr and served in the Royal Westminster Regiment for over twenty years. He created his own project called Painting to Afghanistan and this year he traveled to Afghanistan to take photographs, sketch and draw. Unlike Canada's official war artists, Chris went outside the safe zone, put on his body armor and worked in incredibly dangerous conditions.

As a note to other artists: if you think your insurance bill is high, war artists have to be insured for $15,000.

Community Dialogue Tomorrow!

	Art at War - Community Dialogue Session October 17, 2011 UPDATE! Art at War will feature two presentations by local artists. Chris Hennebery, a war veteran and artist, will discuss a history of war art as well as a glimpse into his new series: Painting to Afghanistan. Lori Weidenhammer, who is curating the Firehall's photo exhibition opening October 20th entitled Peace at War: Service and Sacrifice, will speak about her research for the show and present some of the archival images of Vancouver she will be curating. This dialogue will look into the practice of documenting war through art and how it has evolved over the years. Seeing as how we… Read More... UPDATE! Art at War will feature two presentations by local artists. Chris Hennebery, a war veteran and artist, will discuss a history of war art as well as a glimpse into his new series: Painting to Afghanistan. Lori Weidenhammer, who is curating the Firehall's photo exhibition opening October 20th entitled Peace at War: Service and Sacrifice, will speak about her research for the show and present some of the archival images of Vancouver she will be curating. This dialogue will look into the practice of documenting war through art and how it has evolved over the years. Seeing as how we will be discussing art, rather than having this session be a straight dialogue, we have prepared readings of literature and poems written about and during war times that can then be discussed as well featuring images created about combat. DATES: October 17, 7pm at the Audain Gallery, SFU Woodward's 149 W. Hastings Street

Socks and Smokes

American Poster, artist unknown, 1918

Many people on the Home Front sent care packages to the men and women overseas. In Edith Adams Ninth Annual Cookbook she gives detailed instructions on what to pack and how to pack it. Some acceptable items include butter in a sealed container, sugar cubes, evaporated milk, chocolate milk powder, tinned meats and fish, dried vegetables and fruit, cheese, jams, jellies, pickles, maple syrup, honey, fruit cake, plum puddings, shortbread, powdered milk, fruit juice (concentrated), powdered eggs, and tinned nuts. Ms. Adams also recommends using popcorn as a packing material and stuffing empty spaces with little extras such as shoelaces, chocolate, gum, and "smokes." Of course, there's always got to be room for an extra pair of hand-knitted socks.

What happens when the men received their packages? Well, according to Harry Rankin, some of it was sold to civilians:

In London too, we'd visit Canada House and be given socks and balaklavas knitted by dear old ladies for the war effort. Some of those socks were so enormous that they'd go up over our knees. So we'd take them out and sell them to civilians who'd unravel them and knit them up into something useful. My family would send cigarettes, but since I never smoked, they got flogged too. All this went for a few drinks and a little extra grub.

Sometimes my mother would send a food parcel and I'd share some of it with my buddies just as they'd share theirs. But you didn't go handing it out to civilians like they show in the old war movies; food supplies may have been bad for civilians but they were just as bad in the army cookhouses.

--Rankin's Law: Reflections of a Radical by Harry Rankin, 1975. November House, Vancouver

Rankin says the food was so bad sometimes the soldiers would go on strike and refuse to get leave the bunkhouse. This conflict came to a head just before the men from the Seaforth Highlanders were about to fight the Battle of Ortona.

On the invasion practices, everything was laid on as if it were the real event--including the food. In our pockets we'd carry a couple of cheese or jam sandwiches to hold off starvation. Then, at night we'd arrive back at camp, soaking wet and chilled to the bone to be fed a scoop of applesauce, a piece of cheese, a couple of chunks of bread and a mug of tea. By this time the first division had been around long enough that we weren't going to take this kind of shit. So we went on strike. Lt. Colonel B.M Hoffmeister was commanding at the time and I'm sure he could see his whole career going down the drain with that strike. After all, this was mutiny among the troops selected to invade Sicily! That night he sent a truck to Glasgow for more rations. We ate a little better after that.

--Harry Rankin, Ibid.

More Digging into Victory Gardens

City of Vancouver Archives: BC Telephone Victory Garden CVA 586-1546

Yesterday I chatted with Michael Levenston at City Farmer. My neighbor Catherine had remembered meeting a Vancouver Victory Gardener with Michael and I was curious about the details. Michael said he might be able to find an article about the Victory Gardner and lo and behold he has hit the jackpot and you can read the piece on his blog. The "Last Victory Gardener" was Dr. Donald Flather and he had a Victory garden on the boulevard facing his house in Kerrisdale. My favorite part of the article, written by Kerry Banks for City Farmer in 1979, is when he asks if the Flathers have to buy any vegetables. The answer: "Yes, avocados. But not too often, we’re really not that fond of them.” Dr. Flather remembers that it was a common practice for people to grow potatoes on their front lawns and there was a time when he said there was a Victory Garden on almost every block in Vancouver. Truly amazing. Then there's also the story of his passion for painting. He sounds like a wonderful man. I wish I could have met Dr. Flather.

Another exciting discovery I made is that Ian Mosby, a Phd candidate at York University, (currently doing his post-doc at the U. of Guelph) just handed in his thesis called "Food Will Win the War: The Politics and Culture of Food and Nutrition During the Second World War" which includes interesting research on Victory Gardens. He gave me a sneak peek at one of the chapters and it's fascinating. I really hope he publishes it as a book.

So now, dear readers, I want you to do a bit of detective work. Can you figure out where that photo of the B.C. Telephone Victory Garden was taken? What is that building in the back ground? Is it city hall? If you follow this link to the digital collection from the City of Vancouver Archives you can see more photos of the gardens, so maybe you can find a few more clues. Happy detecting!

ETA: I wonder if the photo got flipped. Maybe it should be printed the other way around.

Edith Adams' Vitamins for Victory!

During WWII in Vancouver, certain foods and drinks were rationed including butter, sugar, meat, eggs, tea, coffee and alcohol. Earlier this month I was privileged to check out some of the lovely wartime cookbooks deep in the basement of the Museum of Vancouver. Curator Joan Seidl introduced me to the lovely Edith Adams, the Vancouver Sun's locally grown version of Betty Crocker. We discovered a recipe for War Fruit Cake which will appear in the exhibition, along with a reproduction of the cover of Vitamins for Victory!: Edith Adams' 8th Annual Prize Winner's Cookbook with choice recipes from the Vancouver Sun. The fruit cake has no eggs, and it uses apple sauce for moisture and baking soda as a leavening agent. I asked my mom if they ate a lot of fruit cake in those days. "Oh yes," she said. "At weddings and Christmas and I used to get one for my birthday because it was so close to Christmas." I think she would have preferred chocolate.

There's a story about Vancouver fruitcakes that I'm going to talk about later (which involves a giant gourd grown in the Okanagan called the zucca) but in the mean time mom says she used to remember her dad growing citron melons in Saskatchewan for making candied peel to go in fruit cakes. And if you don't think fruit cakes are such a big deal, Canada consumed 3.3 million pounds of glacé fruits in 1943. That's a lot of fruit cake!

There is a recipe on the web from a Vancouver Bed and Breakfast called Arbutus Garden House for a World War II Cake that they used to make for their customers. "Is that why they're no longer in business?" Joan Seidl quipped. Well, I don't know but I think there is a bit of a fruit cake revival going on now that we no longer dump chemicals on the dried fruit and we don't load them with sugar and lard. I see slices of fruit cake as decadent "power bars." Bring on the fruitcake season, Edith!

Two Views at the Surrey Museum

While I was at the City of Vancouver Archives today I noticed a striking poster for a show at the Surrey Museum which looks very interesting. It's an exhibition of photographs of WWII Japanese internment camps by Ansell Adams and Leonard Frank. They are also having a special community talk and tea on October 22.

Here's the info from their website:

Two Views

Experience two perspectives of Japanese Canadians and Japanese Americans during their internment in the 1940s. The reality of forced separation and uprooting of families is portrayed through striking black and white photographs by Ansell Adams and Leonard Frank. Adams highlighted the personal stories of those who were interned, while Frank documented the government process, creating a contrasting and thought-provoking exhibit. Presented by Japanese Canadian National Museum.
On display September 13-October 29

Japanese Internment in WWII Canada

Join Raymond Nakamura from the Japanese Canadian National Museum to learn about Japanese Canadian history, the Canadian internment of its Japanese citizens during WWII and his own family's experiences in this troubling period. Please pre-register
1 session $6 (16+yrs)
Saturday, October 22
1:00pm-2:00pm
4261335

Tea and Tour: Two Views Exhibit:

Join Museum staff for a guided tour of the Two Views exhibit to learn the stories behind the images, the history of the Japanese interment in Canada and the stories of Surrey’s pre-war Japanese population. Then chat about the photographs and this aspect of history over tea. Please pre-register

1 session $5 (16+yrs)
Saturday, October 22
2:30pm-3:30pm
4261353

Why Go to War? A Community Dialogue at the Firehall Arts Centre

You are invited to the first in a series of community dialogues this Sunday at the Firehall Arts Centre:

Come tour the historic Firehall building and join us for the first of our three-part series of Community Dialogue Sessions focusing on different aspects of war.

Featuring WWII veterans including Wes Lowe, Frank Wong, George Chow and author and Chinese Canadian Museum Curator Larry Wong, this weekend's talk will look at the motivations behind why individuals chose to enlist. Excerpts from the documentary film "Unwanted Soldiers" will be shown.

You are invited on a guided tour of the Firehall at 2 p.m.

Community Dialogue Session: Why Go To War? begins at 3pm

Created to compliment the Firehall's production on VIMY opening November 2, the following two dialogue sessions in the series will take place October 17 and 24 and cover the topics of the evolution of art at war and the different roles of women during war.

Invisible Women: WWII Aboriginal Servicewomen in Canada by Grace Poulin

Isn't it fantastic when you're digging for historical information and you've found someone has written a book based on the very topic you're after? Such was my luck when I discovered that Grace Poulin has written about Aboriginal women in Canada who served in WWII. I chatted with Grace on the phone today and she told me that she became interested in Canada's Aboriginal history after she took a course on the changing roles of Aboriginal women. The professor showed the class a photo of a woman in uniform and remarked "There's a thesis for someone...." Well, Grace decided she would research that photograph which lead her spending several months tracking down vets and traveling to interview them.

One of the women she interviewed was Mary Greyeyes, a woman from Saskatchewan who eventually married and settled in Vancouver. She was the first aboriginal woman to join the Canadian Women's Army Corps. After the war she became Mary Reid and eventually moved to Vancouver and lived on Commercial Drive for 36 years. Sadly, she died in March, 2011.

You can order the book directly from Grace Poulin and proceeds from the publication go towards the making of a documentary based on the book. I can't wait to read it!

Mrs. Vancouver

I have been getting re-acquainted with micro-fiche, which I hate. Maybe I can make friends with the medium because it does contain some lovely gems such as this piece from the Vancouver Sun (Jan 15, 1943), written in that particularly chipper and patronizing tone of wartime cheerleading directed at women. How would you rate as Mrs Vancouver?

Feeling Proud, Mrs. Vancouver?

Well, You've Every Right To

by Ruth Millet

When Mrs. Vancouver started counting up the new skills she had acquired in the last year she couldn't help feeling a little proud of herself.

She had learned enough first aid so that she wouldn't stand and wring her hands if she should see someone badly hurt.

She had learned how to make sick patients comfortable.

She had learned what to do if an incendiary bomb should fall on the roof of her house.

She had learned what is under the hood of her automobile, and how to change a tire.

BACK TO SIMPLE LIFE

She had learned to grow something for her dining room table besides a floral centrepiece.

She had learned to can fruits and vegetables.

She had learned how to knit.

She had learned a simple yardstick for a balanced diet.

She had learned to carry her own packages instead of saying "Send it, please."

She had learned to get places without a car.

She had learned to put the money she would like to spend on a new hat into war bonds.

She had learned to entertain simply and inexpensively.

She had learned to save--everything from paper and bacon to grease.

She had learned how to ride a bicycle--if not with grace, still without serious accident.

That is quite a list for one year's time. No wonder Mrs. Vancouver feels she is quite a girl.

The Red Cross

Some of my earliest memories are from Red Cross meetings in Cactus Lake, Saskatchewan. My mother was a member for over fifty years, meeting with a group of women who were always working on a relief project of some sort. In the Cactus Lake hall there's a black and white photo of the group from the 1960's and there I am as an infant on my mom's knee. I remember the women making up kits of school supplies to send to some faraway country and they were always sewing--making quilts and "layettes". (Layettes are kits for new moms including blankets, bibs, burping cloths and diapers, usually all handmade.) Red Cross suppers with turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, cabbage rolls, spaeztle, jellied salads and a wide variety of pies reflected the German and Ukrainian heritage of our hamlet and the surrounding farms. My grandma May was in the Red Cross during WWII and so she was one of the many women of Canada creating "ditty bags" and "comfort kits" for sailors and soldiers. Red Cross kits for able bodied men contained 1 small diary, 1 pencil, 1 jack knife, 1 comb, 1 small note book and envelope, 1 tube shaving cream, 1 deck of cards, 1 "housewife" (sewing case), and 5 postcards. They sewed up the cloth bags, filled them, and sent them off. Red Cross volunteers also prepared surgical supplies. Five years ago the Cactus Lake Red Cross celebrated their 65th anniversary.

The North Vancouver branch of the Red Cross was formed in 1914 and its first mobile blood donor clinic was held in 1947.

During the First World War the hall of the West Vancouver Presbyterian Church was utilized for Red Cross quarters as well as for church services. The Vancouver Red Cross operated a WWII version of a food truck: a mobile canteen for the Air Raid Precaution events such as this spectacular fire drill on Kits Beach.

November 12, 1941

The first person to donate blood to the Red Cross in Vancouver was a “bantamweight” New Westminster grocer named Jimmy Muir. “Last week,” the Province reported, “the mayor (Jack Cornett) drew Muir's name from a hat and gave him the honor of being the first person in Vancouver to contribute blood in the Red Cross 'blood bank'.” Another early donor was David Smith, of West 12th Avenue, “a carpenter in the Boeing factory on Coal Harbour, where 500 workmen have each offered a pint of blood.” The blood was to be sent to the war zones.

http://www.vancouverhistory.ca/chronology1941.htm

The Numbers:

The Canadian Red Cross Corps eventually numbered 15,000 women. Of that group, the Overseas Detachment of 641 volunteers served in England, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and parts of Africa.

They drove ambulances - often in blackouts, supported patients and assisted staff in military hospitals. In London, they staffed four “Maple Leaf” hostels and two canteens as well as assisting civilians in England. A number of volunteers served as welfare officers with military hospitals in the United Kingdom, Africa, Italy, northern Europe and Korea. Other activities included helping with the rehabilitation of the war-blinded and coordinating the distribution of parcels to prisoners of war.

http://www.redcross.ca/article.asp?id=13079&tid=001

Buddies of Bud the Spud

A honeybee laden with pollen sips nectar at the Vancouver City Hall Community Garden

Besides being morale boosters, Victory gardens in Vancouver gave people "pep and energy" for the war effort and provided food for forces and the people of Britain. After the war Canadians sent food overseas to nourish people in war torn countries. Today I chatted with John from Texas who has a community plot at Vancouver city hall. He said his mother grew up in a town that was called Victory Gardens, Texas.

One gets the impression that people on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean ate a lot of potatoes. While Canada has "Bud the Bud," wartime Britain had "Pete the Potato" who was one of the personified tubers created to promote healthy eating during WWIII. I recently watched an episode of Foyle's war called "They Fought in the Fields" in which three Land Girls (women in the Land Army) struggle to plant a field of potatoes before dark. Members of Land Army get to wear snappy uniforms and their diet is supplemented by farm food, but it is back-breaking work and they must have ate, slept, and dreamed of potatoes. Not to mention the turnips, which were another war time staple, even in the gardens at Buckingham Palace.

The Canadian war artist Bruno Bobak remembers being invited in to a family's home in appreciation for the liberation of Almelo, Holland:

"We had a four-course meal, but every course was potato,'' he says. "We had potato soup, potatoes with gravy, potatoes with brown sugar. They had almost no food left."

--The Telegraph Journal

Woolton Pie was a famous recipe named after the British Ministry of food made with simple, cheap, and wholesome ingredients.

"It was named after Frederick Marquis, Lord Woolton, the ex-managing director of a store chain called Lewis (mainly in the north of England) and ex-social worker, who was appointed Minister of Food in April 1940. Unglamorous his position may have been, but it was vital to the war effort. It says much for Woolton's personal charm that he was remarkably popular with the public, even when singing the praises of rissoles without beef, cakes without sugar and tea without tea leaves."

--www.carrotmuseum.com

Those who have the will to win,

Cook potatoes in their skin,

Knowing that the sight of peelings,

Deeply hurts Lord Woolton's feelings.

--http://www.homesweethomefront.co.uk

To Make Woolton pie you cut up potatoes (with the skins on so as not to hurt Wooly's feelings), "swedes", cauliflower and carrots, and spring onions, cover with vegtable stock and a teaspoon of oatmeal and cook it. By this I gather they mean boil it to within an inch of its life. This is your pie filling. You put this in a baking dish, cover it with more potatoes or pastry and cook it in the oven. You can read more about the fascinating story behind Woolton pie at the World Carrot Museum website.

Today in France, farmers plant potatoes in former battlefields which is still hazardous. In 2007 A woman in Italy found a WWII grenade in a bag of potatoes.

"Police said the pine cone-shaped grenade, which had no pin and was still active, was the same type used by U.S. soldiers in Europe in World War Two. Authorities believe the mix-up happened at a farm in France, where the grenade was plucked from the ground along with potatoes.

To the woman's relief, police and explosives experts in the small town of San Giorgio a Cremano, near Naples, recovered the grenade and safely detonated it on Wednesday."

--Reuters

Check out this website from Dundry Nurseries where you can here Potato Pete's song and even order a reproduction of his own cookbook. You can also watch a clip of a British tv show where they show how to plant and store potatoes and grow squash on top of your bomb shelter. You can also learn how to make your own potash!(?)

The Numbers:

It was estimated that between 1917 and 1919, over five million Victory Gardens had been planted in North America, which had produced some $1.2 billion in foodstuff productions.

By the end of 1943, there were more than 200 000 Victory Gardens in Canada producing 550 lbs of produce.

--wartimehouses.com

A lovely victory zucchini grown at the Simon Fraser Elementary garden at the community garden, Vancouver City Hall.

Dig for Victory!

The Vancouver Police Museum: Where Death Rejoices

I went to the Vancouver Police Museum to see if they had any photos of Vancouver during the war years. Ironically, the most beautiful room in the museum is the autopsy room, a quiet, peaceful room suffused with natural light. The inscription above the door reads: Let idle talk be silenced. Let laughter be banished. This is the place where death rejoices to teach those who live."


Hanging on one wall is a tribute to members of the VPD who served in WWI.

There's also a display that tells the story of Raiichi Shirokawa, a police officer who served during the First World War:

Chief Constable Malcom Maclennan hired the first policeman belonging to a visible ethnic minority. Constable Raiichi Shirokawa (PC 198), a Japanese Canadian, was hired December 14, 1917 but served only a few months before members of the Japanese community allegedly complained he was being used only to spy on them. Faced with this opposition, Shirokawa resigned the following year on December 12, 1918. No negative remarks appear anywhere in his VPD records. He died in Vancouver May 30, 1959.

--Vancouver Police Museum

The Numbers:

WWI: The Canadian Japanese Association in British Columbia put forward a volunteer reserve force of 227 men, some of whom were later admitted into the military.

--Wikipedia

WWII: 22,000 Japanese Canadians (14,000 of whom were born in Canada) were interned in the 1940s.

--Ibid

A War Artist with Chutzpah: Molly Lamb Bobak

War Artist: Did you know the first woman war artist is from Vancouver? Molly Lamb Bobak joined the Canadian Women's Army Corps in 1942. Her mentors included A.Y. Jackson and Jack Shadbolt.

"You joined the navy if you wanted to be chic because they had the nicest uniforms, but I preferred the army,'' she says. " My mother drove me to the old Vancouver Hotel at the intersection of Georgia and Granville, and waited outside while I signed up."

After washing dishes and other menial chores for three years she had the moxy to hitchhike to Ottawa to convince the director of the National Gallery to get her a job as a war artist.

"I was an optimist more than a feminist, and I had to work very hard to become a war artist, to the point of making a damn nuisance of myself,'' she says.

She sketched and painted her fellow officers in Canada during the war and was sent to post-war Holland. She made sketches in the field and then was set up in a studio she was supposed to share with another war artist, Bruno Bobak. He wasn't happy about having to share a studio with a woman and said they'd divide the studio down the middle to avoid one another. However, the two ended up sharing the rest of their lives together they still live in Fredricton New Brunswick.

I highly recommend this article by Marty Klinkenberg from the Telegraph Journal (which I sourced the quotes from above) on Molly Lamb Bobak and Bruno Bobak, particularly the story of the meeting with Lord Beaverbrooke. The article also states:

"Bruno Bobak and Molly Lamb were engaged through a similar government initiative three decades later, and most of their works are now part of the collection at the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa. In all, Canada enlisted 32 official artists in the Second World War, and between them they produced approximately 5,000 drawings.

Together, the Bobaks accounted for 241."

Their work from the war is in several collections around Canada and you can buy some of their recent war from their website. One of my favorite of Molly's paintings is an image of one of her fellow CWACs, Private Roy.

The description of the work from the Canadian War Museum website states:

"Bobak sketched Private Roy several times in a canteen in Halifax, Nova Scotia, before undertaking the finished portrait. In a 1985 interview the artist commented: 'The painting has caught her at a point in time; she'll always be young and she'll always be Private Roy to those who see her.'"

Our Jewish Heroes

When I spoke with Donna Spencer, director of the play Vimy at the Firehall Arts Centre I was struck by an image she described from her visit to Vimy Ridge this summer. She said there are rows and rows of crosses on the graves of the German soldiers, and occasionally a headstone marking a Jewish German soldier's grave. In both World Wars Jewish Vancouverites from Germany, the Ukraine and other countries went back to Europe to fight as Canadian soldiers.


Joseph Seidelman was the first Jewish person to enter the University of British Columbia. He was one of the Jewish men who enlisted as Canadian soldiers even though they often faced suspicion and prejudice towards their German heritage. He fought valiantly and died in the battle of Paschendale. The online Jewish Museum and Archives Archives of British Columbia displays a letter from Joseph to his sister.

Somewhere in France

July 3, 1917

Dear Rachel,

I just received your letters of June 4 and June 6 and was glad to find out that the official telegram from Ottawa to the effect that I was wounded on May 5 was so long delayed, because it gave my letter of May 6 which I sent you a chance of getting to you first. I was in the hospital 5 weeks altogether and it is now almost a month since I am back with the battalion. I have not yet got a gold stripe for men who were wounded and that they should come to him for the strip. According to military rules and regulations, however, it is not easy to approach an officer, and for this reason I will not ask for the stripe, but if offered it I will take it. Perhaps you would like to know how I got hit. On the night of May 5 we attacked and captured some German trenches and it was then that I got hit in the leg. It was somewhat difficult for me to walk out to the dressing station, but finally succeeded in doing so. On my way out at first, I happened to meet one of our own officers lying wounded in front of the German barbed wire. I did not notice him in the dark as he was lying still but he saw me moving along and called to me. When I found out who he was and that he was more seriously hurt than I was, I went back again to where the fighting was going on and got a stretcher bearer for this officer and, by a very accident, I happened to meet his batman. Then after bringing them to where he was lying, I proceeded on my way to the dressing station as best I could. This officer is Lieut. Hall who, I remember was for a time an instructor in the old 196th Bat. O.T.C. that used to be at Seaford, Eng.
I did not tell you this before because I have so much in my mind to write you that I really get tired writing, so that the result is that you may get a story of my experiences by spasms in different letters. You asked me once when the war will end. Well, I think it may end this winter and perhaps next year.

Well, Rachel, so long for the present, as usual E. Joseph Seidelman.


Many Jewish Canadians also fought in the Second World War including Harry Rankin of Vancouver who joined the Seaforth Highlanders three days after war was declared. According to Tom Hawthorn from the Globe and Mail: "Mr. Rankin was hurt once in training, wounded during the bloody Battle of Ortona in Italy, and suffered a third injury on May 23, 1944, when he was hit in the back by shrapnel while fighting in Italy." Harry became a celebrated "champion of the underdog" in Vancouver and died in Vancouver on Feb. 26, 2002.

Rosie the Riveter, Canuck Style

I am a fan of the television series Foyle's War so this project gives me a good excuse to watch it all over again. The series is about the life of a policeman in England during WWII. I am a HUGE fan of Michael Kitchen's understated acting and Honeysuckle Weeks'plucky character. Last night I watched the episode called Bleak Midwinter based around the female worker's death in the munitions factory. It really drives home the point of how dangerous this work was.

In Vancouver women worked in the shipyards, the Boeing Factory, and the lumber industry ("lumberjills"). I also found out that the Canadian women worked making "light" machine in guns Toronto were represented by Veronica Foster, known as the Ronnie the Brenn gun girl. Images of her have a smoldering, sexy edge.

Some interesting stats and trivia from the Veterans Affairs Canada website:

Out of a total Canadian population of 11 million people, only about 600,000 Canadian women held permanent jobs when the war started. During the war, their numbers doubled to 1,200,000.

At the peak of wartime employment in 1943-44, 439,000 women worked in the service sector, 373,000 in manufacturing and 4,000 in construction.

Je suis une brave poule de guerre

Check out this WWI propaganda poster from France.

Citizens are called to be inspired by the brave war hen who eats little and produces a lot: Je suis une brave pule de guerre, je mange peu et produis beaucoup. Propaganda in WWI leaves little room for ambiguity, but some of the artwork is quite lovely. The colors and the composition in this lithograph are compelling. In 1943 Vancouverites were allowed to have a dozen chickens in their back yard without a permit. During both World Wars people were encouraged to grow their own food to save resources such as petrol and farm labor and to send the surplus produce overseas. My mom remembers sending sugar to her pen pal in England named Rosemary Coombs. My partner says his mom remembers rationing sugar by grinding up stale cookies and putting them in the cookie batter for the next batch. There was even a special war diet that helped you stay strong so that like the brave little chicken, even thought your diet was carefully rationed, you still had the energy to help the war effort and take care of your own Victory Garden.

This poster, designed by a 14-yr-old, is interesting because it is one of the earliest evidence I've seen of the concept of a Victory Garden: "Cultivons Notre Potager." In WWI they were called "War Gardens." Citizens were encouraged to eat more fish and save meat for the troops, to eat more potatoes and save bread. This American poster doesn't mince words: "Food is ammunition--don't waste it." Another American poster advises observing meatless, wheatless and porkless days.

Food:

1) Buy it with thought

2) cook it with care

3) use less wheat and meat

4) buy local foods

5) serve just enough

6) use what is left

don't waste it

--US Food Administration, 1917

Ruins into Radishes

GARDENS (aka BOMB CRATER, BLITZED GARDENS) (issue title - WHAT GOES ON?)

Thanks to Michael Levenston's blog at City Farmer, I found an excellent British Pathé film of an extraordinary Victory Garden planted by Mr. Hayes in a bomb crater located in "the shadow of Westminster Cathedral. The text has some great slogans:

Everything the average allotment grows on his plot, Mr Hayes grows in his crater.

Mr Hayes certainly how many beans make five.

That patch was one a bomb crater but Jerry didn't know he was going to say it with flowers.

What was once a bomb has now been transformed into a boon.

Ruins into radishes, litter into leeks and do these girls know their onions!

...Cabbages where cabs were ranked, Londoners can take it and grow it!

• I am currently looking for photos of Victory gardens in Vancouver. Also, I am wondering if city hall had victory gardens in WWII where the community garden is planted right now. You can comment below or contact me here: beespeaker[at]gmail[dot]com.
  

Five Brothers

In order to find out more about the owner of the "Victor" watch, my partner's mother directed me to one of her grandchildren, Rebecca. She'd done a report on her great uncles who fought in WWI and then visited the Vimy memorial with her grade eleven class. I phoned Rebecca and found out Herbert Burleigh Douse had four brothers, and three of them lost their lives in the First World War. The oldest brother's body was never found and so his name is inscribed on the Vimy memorial.

Rebecca says: "One of the things I found moving was that when you visit the memorial to Vimy Ridge, you are half way around the world from home and you are on land that France has dedicated to Canada. I tried to find the oldest brother's name on the memorial, but she couldn't locate it, which was upsetting. It was a hot day and there were so many names."

In fact there are 11, 285 souls whose bodies had not been found and identified who are memorialized the the grave of the unknown soldier at Vimy.


To the valour of their
Countrymen in the Great War
And in memory of their sixty
Thousand dead this monument
Is raised by the people of Canada

--inscription on the Vimy Ridge monument (We lost over 66,000 service personnel in WWI.)

So I went online and looked for information about the Douse brothers. I found a copy of Herbert Burleigh's Attestation Paper with his own handwriting. His eyes were grey and his hair, dark brown. He was five feet, five and 3/4 inches. His cheeky sense of humour comes through when he writes beside Complexion: "Fresh". It's poignant that every man had to write down any distinguishing marks on their body. His description reads: 1/2 inch scar on r. knee cap and 1/2 scar on r. forearm.

I looked for information on his brothers and I found something completely unexpected. A newspaper clipping. You can click on the image to enlarge it.

As I read this clipping the impact of imagining the grief of the parents of these boys hit me and the tears started to flow.

Elegiac

This arrived in my e-mail today from Dictionary.com:

Word of the Day for Sunday, September 11, 2011

elegiac \el-i-JAHY-uhk\, adjective:

1. Relating to the mourning or remembering of the dead.
2. Used in, suitable for, or resembling an elegy.
3. Expressing sorrow.

Elegiac stems from the Greek elegos, "poem or song of lament," a word that may date back to the Phrygian language.

The "Victor" Watch

I was telling my partner about my day researching in the city archives and suddenly he says, "You know my grandfather was at Vimy Ridge. I have his watch."
"You mean he survived?" I asked. I was shocked that somehow this piece of family history had escaped me.
"Yes of course, and he actually ended up living here in Vancouver before he died. His name was Herbert Burleigh Dowse. and he fought on Vimy Ridge. He was pulled out of the carnage after someone went by with a cart to pick up anyone he thought looked like they might survive. This was after he'd lain on the battlefield for seven hours."

He went upstairs and showed me the watch. It seems incredible that something so small and fragile could have survived the exigencies of trench warfare. Even thought it can't tell the time, as Peter held it against his wrist it was ticking loudly as if the plucky little watch was saying "I'm not gone yet! I've still got it in me!" The back is inscribed with the word "MOTOR" and a series of numbers, but by an uncanny trick of the light, to me the word looked like "VICTOR". Can you see it?


It seems a bit spooky that we have an object that was at the Battle of Vimy Ridge. I've always felt that objects carry memories with them, images and sounds that cling and can be seen by those with special gifts. We live in a house that has stood since before the First World War and whenever I dig up a piece of pottery or a rusty nail I keep it in a ceramic pot on the back steps. It's one of my superstitions. Each little fragment has its own story. The land throws up its artifacts and we try to read history with our fingers and a sixth sense inextricably linked to our dreams.

Studying War

Do you believe that the land carries memories the way our skin remembers experience with its various scars? Certainly if you see aerial photos of the parts of France devastated by trench warfare, you see a haunted landscape carved, shaped, and devastated by war. Have you been to Vimy? Is it on your "bucket list"? The people I have talked to say they have been changed forever by witnessing the battlefield. You can hear it in their voice when they describe their visit: tones of reverence, gravitas, and a gentle sadness. There's wonder there too, as if to say, "How could this be true?" The land also remembers because Canadians who lived during the war return to Vimy Ridge to pay their respects or even now, Canadian families return to bury their dead. The First and Second World Wars were fought a long way from Vancouver, but the events that happened here also shaped the land and left indelible traces on our collective identity.

As I open the research books, the gospel tune "I ain't gonna study war no more" plays in my mind's ear. Ironically, I am embarking on a month long journey of war studies. To be specific, I'm looking at the First and Second World Wars in Vancouver as part of a Vancouver 125 project at the Firehall Arts Centre. Donna Spencer is directing a production of Vern Thiessen's play Vimy, and I am curating a visual art show that will hang in the lobby of the theater for the duration of the show. We want to draw people in to embark on their own internal study of Canada's war history, to ask all those big soul-searching questions that this study demands of us.

I find that after facing photos and text that describe the tragedies of war, once I close the books and head out the door onto the streets of Vancouver I am more acutely aware of the meaning of peace. I revel in the woman who revels in the pleasure of the sun beaming on her bare arms. I covet the cool hours I water our garden and clip sweet peas under the rising moon. I savor the privilege of picking a ripe tomato from the vine. I note that I'm lucky a jet passing over my house does not make me cringe in fear. For all these things, I am grateful. We study war in order to deepen our appreciation and understanding of peace. We read about war so that we can renew our commitment to resolve and end conflict. All of us have the responsibility to take the memories and stories into our bodies, to become memory keepers.

On January 11, 2010 we lost one of our most courageous and gifted memory keepers. Chava Rosenfarb was a Canadian author who survived the camps at Auschwitz and Bergen Belsen. I heard her story on The Late Show with Gordon Pincent on CBC Radio 1. (I recommend listening to the podcast here.) While many people have struggled to forget the horrors of war, Chava Rosenfarb believed in facing her past and telling her story. By writing a fictional account of her experiences she used her gifts to help us all to become memory keepers.

"But please remember that the future grows out of the past and the past too must be remembered, if only for the lessons it has to teach us, namely, what to celebrate and what to fear."

--Chava Rosenfarb