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!