Monday, March 22, 2010
Wartime House

"SECOND WORLD WAR HOUSES FOR WARTIME HOUSING LTD.

1941-1942

  "During the Second World War the City of North Vancouver was an important centre for shipbuilding activities.  The sudden influx of workmen for these and other defense projects necessitated the construction of a number of new homes.  As such, in 1941 two hundred new residences were built at 2nd Street and St. George's Avenue, and four hundred were constructed between Fell and Heywood Avenues, while McCarter and Nairne acted as supervising architects for all wartime housing in British Columbia.  In addition, two large buildings, each housing approximately one hundred and eighty bachelors, were built at the corner of 3rd Street and St. George's Avenue.  A number of these smaller wartime residences remain in the City of North Vancouver, however, due to their modular nature, most have been altered or added to over the years.  A recent in-depth study of wartime housing by J. Robert Faulkner has clarified its significance to the development of the North Shore, and identified those examples still remaining in the City; these are listed and described on the following pages."  City of North Vancouver Heritage Inventory 1994, page 172.

The house at 648 East 3rd Street is one of these Wartime Houses and a photo and description are shown on page 174 of the City of North Vancouver Heritage Inventory 1994. "This is another example of an H-1 single family residence. These houses were 24'x24' in plan, and also built in reverse, such as this model which has the double windows of the living room to the left of the entry."  648 was built in 1941 for $1605.  

In 1945 and 1950 the house was owned by Eric S. and Justine Dunham.  Eric worked as a burner  for the NVSR in 1945 and for the PDD in 1950.  By 1960 Justine was a widow and a factory worker at Schlage Lock.  In the 1968 City Directory the house is listed only as occupied.  And in 1975 there was no answer at all to their requests.  In 1985 the new resident was R. K. Crockett.  And in 1995/96 the occupant is listed as C. Jordan.

The photo of 648 East 3rd Street was taken by Suzanne Wilson as part of her

Year 2000 Photography Project, Your House/Our Home.  2000 photos of homes in the City of North Vancouver were photographed.  Approximately 800 of these were accompanied by some history from the present or previous home owner sometimes including personal photographs. 

In the month of June 2007 Suzanne Wilson celebrated the City of North Vancouver's 100 birthday by distributing to their home owners copies of 1000 photos taken for the Y2K Project.  At this time it was discovered that the home photographed at 648 East 3rd Street had been demolished and a new home had been built.


Photo: Taken in the year 2000 by SW.
Reference: The Year 2000 project was donated by Suzanne and Alan Wilson to the North Vancouver Archives and is available for viewing.

 

Sunday Church Feature

Seymour Wisconsin 1915

Emmanual Lutheran Church at 349 North Main Street in Seymour, Wisconsin was built in 1915. The red brick building with white Bedford stone trim around the trinity front doors features double square steeples with stained glass windows. The larger of the steeples contains a bell tower and clocks on each of its sides. A trinity stained glass window is above the front doors. The sides of the church also feature trinity stained glass windows. The church is on the corner of North Main Street and County Road G. If you travel further down North Main Street you come to the Outagamie Fair Grounds.

Deanna and Jay DeBruin are currently working on the history of Emmanual Lutheran Church. Here are some of the highlights from the Lutheran Standard of March 4, 1939. Rev. Frederick H. Ohlrogge was minister during the erection of the $30,000 church that was dedicated on Jan. 9, 1916. The debt was paid off in five years. The church is 110 feet long and 45 feet wide. The tallest of the square towers is 75 feet high. The front doors are of heavy oak. The Gothic design of the interior features a wooden altar in a large semicircular niche twenty feet wide. A life sized figure of the Lord with arms outstretched stands in the center of the altar and in the lower part a plaque of the Last Supper. The organ is in the rear balcony that seats 100. The main floor seats about 500. Cark Reiman of Milwaukee, Wisconsin and a member of the Stained Glass Association of America 1912-1923 was the designer of the interior and the Neo-Gothic stained glass windows.

Emmanual Lutheran was the church of Marie Juergenmeyer, Seymour Wisconsin, grandmother of Suzanne Marie Wilson, North Vancouver B.C., and great-great grandmother of Holly Marie Misner, Spokane Washington.

Suzanne remembers attending the church with her grandmother when she was a young child in the 1940's . It was there she learned the Apostle's Creed. The minister at that time was Rev. Theo Ohlrogge.

Note: See Blog Post February 20 for more about Seymour, Wisconsin.

Thank you: To Seymour Wisconsin residents: Deanna and Jay DeBruin, Ellen Piehl, and Mark Ellis.

Photo: Taken in 2006 by SW.

Link 1: http://seymourwi.com/
Link 2: https://seymourfaith.ctsmemberconnect.net/home-ctrl.do?view=0&grpId=35013

Saturday Travel Feature
Phillips 66 in Seymour

The gas station in the photo above was bought by Martin Juergenmeyer in 1932. It was on Highway 54 at the corner with C Road,  just at the entrance to the small northern Wisconsin town of  Seymour. This original white clapboard building had an office space through the front door and behind the three front windows. An oil room was to the left of the front door. And a mechanic's shop was behind the three large doors on the right. Martin soon added a house on to the back of the building. The house front entrance with a lattice arch was on the left side. There was also a door inside the gas station office to the house and one on the right side of the house out to the garden. To the right of the gas station Martin dug a mechanic's pit with a ramp above.

The house of Marie and Martin Juergenmeyer had two bedrooms, a living room, a bathroom, and a kitchen. In the kitchen sink along with running water there was a water pump. The gas station office is where Marie kept her treadle sewing machine and where she taught her granddaughter Suzanne how to sew doll clothes. The office also had a glass cabinet candy counter and refrigerated ice cream bin. A round brown crock of water with a wooden handled ice cream scoop sat on the counter. (This crock now sits on the kitchen counter of Suzanne Wilson.) The crank party line telephone was in the oil room.

By the time Suzanne came from her home in Milwaukee to visited her grandparents in the 1940's summers  large weeping willow trees had grown up in the yard to the left of the gas station. Suzanne would break off the bottom branches and make herself  big skirts. Her grandmother Marie would wash Suzanne's hair in water from the rain barrel next to the house. Behind the weeping willow trees was a large flower garden. To the right of the house was a large vegetable garden, a box and screen rack for drying apple slices, and a chicken coop where Suzanne liked to go to eat fresh peas and lick the rainbow ice cream cones her grandfather would scoop up for her. Across the back of the lot the Juergenmeyers planted a 1/2 acre of statis that was sold to the Seymour florist for funeral bouquets. And behind the statis field was a cemetery where the local kids would sit on the tombstones and eat their lunches.

Martin Juergenmeyer ran the Phillips 66 gas station until he died in 1948. Marie then ran it until it was sold and she moved to Kaukauna, Wisconsin.


According to Janice Eick at the Seymour Community Museum in 2001, "the garage was torn town in the "50's and the house was moved around the corner. About in 1996 the house burned down. Now on the corner where the station was located they have a new Mobile station and a new McDonald's."

Seymour Wisconsin should be well known to everyone; the small town west of Green Bay and north of Lake Winnebago is "The Home of the Hamburger". "The Seymour Community Historical Society of Seymour, Wisconsin, credits Charlie Nagreen, now known as "Hamburger Charlie", with the invention of the hamburger. Nagreen was fifteen when he reportedly made sandwiches out of meatballs that he was selling at the 1885 Seymour Fair (now the Outagamie County Fair), so that customers could eat while walking. The Historical Society explains that Nagreen named the hamburger after the Hamburg steak with which local German immigrants were familiar.^[6][7]" Wikipedia.Where as Seymour has only a population of 3,474 during the Outagamie County Fair in July 80,000 people attend. And "each August Burger Fest brings thousands of people to the community for the Ketchup Slide, a parade,the Bun Run, and other festivities. The city also hold the world record for the largest burger, creating an 8000 pound monster hamburger." Link.

Demolition: Torn down in the 1950's. Seymour Community Museum.

Photo: Historic photo, photographer unknown, Photoshoped by SW.

Link:http://seymourwi.com/

Friday, March 19, 2010
Under the House

There is no data in the Building Permit book as to when this house at 877 Clements Avenue was built. However since the Building Permit book usually includes only those houses built between 1912 and 1957 this is not surprising. Other homes of this style in North Vancouver started to be built in the 1960's. A search of the records at the North Vancouver District Hall by Elaine Oakes confirmed this.  She found a 1965 building permit for construction costs of $15,000 granted to Braithwaite Construction, the owner/contractor.
The builders use the topography of the area with its hills and steeps slopes in the features of the houses.  In the case of this house, the slope in front of the house is cut away on the right hand side to provide a carport and parking area.   Hence, the garage  is "under the house". This type of garage with its entrance directly into the house is a real plus in the rain forest that is North Vancouver. The slope in the front of the house is planted with a "rockery", a garden area using rocks as well as plants and flowers usually at its best in the spring.  The lower window on the left is to the "downstairs" where there is often a family room.  The living room is usually above it.  In this type of house plan two bedrooms are on the right hand side of the front door where the high windows are.  The kitchen would be in the back looking out onto the backyard.The front doors lead to what is known as a "cathedral" entrance.  This means there is a high ceiling inside at the front door level.  Then on one side one set of stairs go to the downstairs and on the other side another set of stairs to to the upstairs.  


In 1971 Donald H. and his wife Judy D. Bell owned the house.  Donald was an employee at William's Color Photo Finishing. (In this year 2010 of digital photography that business has gone by the boards.)  T. Acton Kilby and his wife Geraldine lived in the house by 1980 and into the 1990's.  T. Acton worked at Valleyview Hospital during this time.  But by 1995 T. Acton was a consultant for B.C. Health Association and Geraldine was employed at the North Vancouver Union Board of Health.  G.M. Kilby is listed in the year 2000 phone book as still living in the house at the 877 Clements Avenue.

Thank you: To Elaine Oakes for searching the District Hall records.
Demolition: Permit applied for in February 2010.
Photo: Taken in February 2010  by SW.
Reference: The Building Permits District of North Vancouver book compiled by J. R. Faulkner  is available at the North Vancouver Archives in the Community History Centre in the old 1920's Lynn Valley Elementary School at 3203 Institute Rd., near the corner of Lynn Valley Rd. and Mountain Highway. 

Thursday, March 18, 2010

The Sun Shines Bright on Elstree

This North Vancouver white stucco house was built at 627 Elstree Place in 1954 for $13,000 by P. Bergen. This house was typical of houses built in North Vancouver at this time. The usual plan is an open area living room and dining room with a fire place on the right and three small bedrooms and a kitchen on the left. This house also has an addition on the right.


Elstree Place is a short cul de sac street off Delbrook Avenue in the Delbrook area of the District of North Vancouver. The street ends at the upper Mosquito Creek Trail. This 2 km park is a well advertised dog walking area along the eastern branch of Mosquito Creek.


By 1960 E. L. Wheeler had bought the Elstree house. Ken L. and Margaret, Peggy, Wheeler continued to live there until the present time. (As indicated by City Directories 1975, 1985, 1995/96 and the 2008/10 phone book.) In 1968 and 1975 Kenneth Wheeler was a teacher for the Vancouver School Board. In 1995/96 Kenneth and Peggy are listed as consultants. They are both listed in the 2008/10 phone book. So the tally for number of years that the Wheelers lived in the house at 627 Elstree Place is at least 50, a half century in one spot.


Demolition: Permit applied for in January 2010.
Photo: Taken in February 2010 by SW.

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

To Demo or Not to Demo

"To demo or not to demo that is the question." This Tudor style house at 2790 Edgemont Boulevard is for sale and the blue tarp indicates it is certainly in need of major repairs. So the new owners will have to answer the question. As yet there has been no application for a demolition permit, so as of today the question remains unanswered.

The large house with the front stone retaining wall was built for $10,000 in 1951 by S. Lamb. In 1957 he spent $1000 on a house addition and then he soon moved on. For in 1960 the home owners were Gail F. and Patricia M. Mc Cance. And this is where the Shakespeare paraphrase comes in. Gail worked as a technician for the Vancouver Civic Theater Society. He continued to work in that position in 1980. Meanwhile Patricia in 1971 was employed as an assistant control clerk at the Bank of Montreal. Gail at this time was listed as a consultant. In 1995/95 to another McCance family member is listed as living at 2790 Edgemont Blvd., Sandra. Patricia at this time was a student. The year 2000 and 2008/10 phone books indicate the McCance family continued to live at this address until recently when the house was put up for sale.

Edgemont Boulevard defines the Village of Edgemont in the area of the District of North Vancouver known as the Capilano Highlands. The Boulevard extends from Capilano Road, through the commercial area of the Village of Edgemont, south across the Upper Levels Highway, and down the hill to West 21st Street where it becomes Fell Avenue. 2790 Edgemont Boulevard is in the area just south of the Village.

McCance is a Scottish name that basically means son of Angus. (See Link.)

Photo: Taken in February 2010 by SW.

Link: http://www.houseofnames.com/xq/asp.fc/qx/mccance-family-crest.htm

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Lorraine on Loraine

The cream colored house waving flags for the 2010 Olympic Winter games is at 3890 Loraine Avenue in the District of North Vancouver. The house was built in 1954 For $10,000 by R. G. Newman. In 1960 William Y. Stewart and his wife H. Lorraine were living in the house. William worked as an installer at B.C. Tel. H. Lorraine was the first of two Lorraines to be an owner of the house. By 1971 Sharon and Douglas Alderson had bought 3890. Douglas was a chiropractor with an office at 1372 Marine Dr. in North Vancouver. In 1980 Ishigura Shun and his wife Florence moved into the house. Ishigura was the manager of the Fisheries Association of B.C. Ishigura is listed as the last name in the 1980 City Directory. However, since Shun can also be used as a last name there is some confusion as to which last name was correct for the husband of Florence. In 1991 the second Lorraine moved into the house at 3890. This time it was Lorraine McBride and her husband D. McBride. Her husband is listed as being retired in 1995/96 and the only occupant in the house.

So the house at 3890 Loraine Avenue was the house of two Lorraines. The name Lorraine is originally taken from the French Province of Lorraine. This is where Joan of Arc was from. It was also the name of a family of French Royalty. Loraine and Lorraine are only two of the variations in the spelling of this name. Others are: Laraine, Larayne, Laurraine, Leraine, Lerayne, Lorain, Loraina, Lorayne, Lori, Lorine, Lorraina, Lorrayne, and possibly Laura. (See Link.)

Photo: Taken in February 2010 by SW.

Link: http://www.thinkbabynames.com/meaning/0/Lorraine