Past Tense

Unpublished draft #2: Here were have an illustrated invoice for Diamond Cabs, owned and operated by Eagle-Time Delivery Co. Ltd., 1019 Seymour Street, and dated 1942. This invoice implies a pretty ritzy lifestyle, with a 1938 Cadillac taxi in front of a cafe/club, complete with uniformed doormen and men in top hats and tails! This particular artifact was found at Antiquarius books, courtesy of Tom Carter. Antiquarius is a great repository of our local history, and although they’ve relocated to Falkland, BC, I’ve purchased numerous bits of obscure ephemera from them. Special thanks to the tireless work of their proprietor, and all independent used book sellers!

You might recognize that 1019 Seymour Street is the address for the Penthouse Night Club, and it was in fact Joe Filippone who started out with a company called Eagle Time Delivery. He then expanded his operation to Diamond Cabs, and eventually, the Penthouse. In fact, MA 2111 also becomes the number of the Penthouse years later, as seen in a program from the Avon Theatre from 1954. More from Neon Eulogy: Vancouver Café and Street by Keith McKellar:

Forbidden Vancouver still offers the occasional tour of the Penthouse; you can check out their website for the latest. And of course, by now you’ve all got your copy of Aaron Chapman’s book Liquor, Lust and the Law published by Arsenal Pulp Press in 2013, with a revised edition that came out for the Penthouse’s 70th anniversary in 2017. If you don’t already have a copy, time to call Taxi! Take me to the nearest bookstore!

Retired Province photographer John Denniston captured this image of Dunlevy Street near Powell in 1974.

Those are wood block pavers and this is what we mean when we say that Vancouver used to be a mill town.

More on wooden cobbles at James Johnstone’s blog: When An Old House Whispers.

Isabel Sweeny (1889-1974) was born in Vancouver and, in this audio clip, recalls seeing the Kitsilano First Nation being displaced to Squamish in the earliest years of the 20th century.

Source: Voices of British Columbia: Stories From Our Frontier by Robert Budd

Photo source: BC Archives PNO8924

Public artwork by Digital Natives appears on the electronic billboard beside the Burrard Street Bridge. In 2002, the Squamish Nation regained control of part of its former reserve and in 2009 erected the 21-metre tall sign in defiance of Vancouver bylaws.

Photo by Barbara Cole

Idle No More photo source: Indian Country Today Media Network

Photographer: David P. Ball

Vancouver’s Sherlock Holmes, Wednesday 21 March 1934 

John F.C.B. Vance was a scientist hired by the City of Vancouver in 1905 as an analyst. His early work for the City was pretty mundane, things like testing milk and water quality. But at some point the Vancouver Police started calling on Vance for his scientific expertise, and he was on his way to carving out a niche as a pioneer in police forensics. Before long he was given the honorary title of Police Inspector.

Inspector Vance solved numerous cases in his lab (where the Police Museum is today) using techniques that are now fairly routine, at least on CSI, like ballistics testing and, in at least one case, matching the dust on a suspected yegg’s clothing to dust from a blown safe. Vance was proud to point out that his work more often decisively exonerated suspects who would otherwise have to live under a cloud of suspicion even if they were acquitted in court.

Vance occasionally helped solve cases in other jurisdictions and became a well known expert in the field who was often referred to as a “modern Sherlock Holmes.” His work brought considerable positive publicity to the VPD, though he wasn’t always appreciated by his bosses, who were more concerned with politics than crime fighting in the 1930s. After National Home Monthly Magazine did a feature article on Vance in their September 1935 issue, Chief Constable Foster issued a memo:

Herbert Darling, a PR savvy RCMP superintendent who was helping the inexperienced Foster restructure the police force, thought Foster’s memo didn’t go nearly far enough. “A General Order should be published,” Darling wrote to Foster,

In the next police budget, Vance was only given $4000 for new equipment instead of the $10,000 he requested. 

One gauge of Inspector Vance’s effectiveness was that six attempts were made on his life in the 30s, including mail bombs, car bombs, and an attacker that threw acid on him.

J.F.C.B. Vance retired in 1942, but he continued working on his longtime pet project of developing a method of criminal identification using scent, based on the idea that everyone emits an odour that is as unique as their fingerprints, but which can’t be easily covered with gloves.

Sources: Image: Drummondville Spokesman; police memos: City of Vancouver Archives, Vancouver police fonds, series #197, 75-E-7, file 9; National Home Monthly, September 1935  

Barbara Howard, February 1938

Barbara Howard was once among the fastest women in the world and the first black woman to represent Canada on the international sports stage. At the age of 17, while still a student at Britannia High School, Howard qualified for the 1938 British Empire Games by sprinting 100 yards in 11.2 seconds, a tenth of a second faster than the Games’ record.

After a month-long voyage to get to the games in Sidney, Howard drew much attention from the Australian media and sports fans, according to the Globe:

Howard placed sixth in the 100 yard dash, but helped bring home silver and bronze medals in two relay races. She felt she let down Canada, so never made a big deal out of the Games when she got home. “I didn’t think I did well,“ she said. "It was nothing to be boasting about if I didn’t get the gold medal.” Her plan was to redeem herself at the 1940 Olympics, but those hopes died because the world was at war and the Games were cancelled. With her sports career behind her, Howard completed the teaching program at UBC and became the first visible minority hired by the Vancouver School Board. 

Only recently has Barbara Howard’s pioneering role in sports been recognized. Last month, at the age of 92, she was inducted into the BC Sports Hall of Fame. She is also depicted in a mural commemorating the centenary of her old high school and was awarded the "Freedom of the Municipality” by Belcarra, where she lived for years.

There has been speculation that Howard might be related to Olympians Valerie and Harry Jerome. Maybe, maybe not, but there is definitely one other fleet-footed person in her family. Barbara Howard’s uncle was Elijah “Lige” Scurry, a local lacrosse legend in the 1890s, when it was the most popular sport around. Lige was so fast on the field that Victoria and New Westminster joined forces to impose a “colour bar” on the league, which effectively ended the lacrosse career of the Vancouver team’s best player. For both Lige Scurry and his niece, the journey to their full athletic potential was cut short by circumstances beyond their control.

For more on Barbara Howard, see Tom Hawthorn’s blog. Thanks to John Burwood for spotting the link between Barbara Howard and Elijah Scurry.

Source: City of Vancouver Archives #371-1643

RIP Barbara Howard.