REVELSTOKE: A KISS IN THE WIND - AN UPDATE

Angelo Conte, image courtesy of Nicola Moruzzi

Most of you by now will have read my most recent post about the house at 423 Prior Street and its connection to the documentary being made on the journey of Italian immigrant Angelo Conte. Angelo's epic journey started from Valstagna in Veneto Italy across the ocean and a continent to Vancouver's East End (Strathcona), then to Kamloops, and ultimately to Glacier, BC where he died in a tragic post blasting accident working on the Connaught Tunnel.

Revelstoke News Herald October 20, 1915 with article on the death of Angelo Conte

The tragic irony is that this accident took place just a week before Angelo was supposed to return to Italy to pick up his wife Anna and his daughter Gigetta and bring them back to live a new life in Canada. 

Anna and Gigetta Conte, image courtesy of Nicola Moruzzi

The fifty letters Angelo had sent to Anna over the 30 month period he had lived in Canada were passed down three generations of the family, unopened and unread by other family members for 100 years.  

Irene Vecchio and Nicola Moruzzi in Valstagna, Italy - Screen Capture from Teaser Video of Revelstoke: A Kiss In The Wind

My friends Nicola Moruzzi and Irene Vecchio are working on a documentary called Revelstoke: A Kiss In The Wind that follows the footsteps of Angelo from Italy to Vancouver's East End (Strathcona), to Kamloops and ultimately to Revelstoke where Angelo lays buried. It is a heart-wrenchingly beautiful story.

Today Nicola and his team launched their Crowd Funding page on IndieGoGo. Crowd funding allows people with interesting projects like these to appeal for funds to a broad spectrum of people and allows people of various financial means to support the project in sums as small as $10 all the way up into the thousands.

I am a passionate supporter of this project. It links so many of my interests: Canadian and neighbourhood history, my neighbourhood Strathcona, my former hometown, Kamloops, and my love of Italy. 

Please click this LINK to the IndieGogo page, watch the teaser video and Nicola's heartfelt appeal for support that will help fuel their time machine.

If you can, please make a donation to this very worthwhile project... If you cannot support the project financially, but know people who you think might be interested, please forward them the link. Who knows? Your generous support may help make history of another kind... You may be instrumental not only in making this documentary possible, you might be part of making Angelo and Anna's story a winner at Cannes and elsewhere...    

Listen to director Nicola Moruzzi interviewed on CBC West about Revelstoke: A Kiss In The Wind

BUT MY HOUSE HAS NO HISTORY - 423 Prior Street and REVELSTOKE: A KISS IN THE WIND

423 Prior Street

One of the biggest disappointments I come across during my work as a house history researcher is to find that an original house at an address I have been researching has been demolished and replaced with something new. I can remember early on in my career as a house history researcher looking for the house on the 600 block of East Cordova where Nova Scotian-born contractor John L. McKenzie, the builder of my old house on the 1000-block of Odlum Drive, had once lived. I was trying to see if McKenzie's house at 662 looked anything like my house. Sadly, the house was gone, and up until a few years ago it has been an empty lot.

When I talk to people about my work as a house history researcher one of the responses I get from people who live in younger houses, like Vancouver Specials, is that their house was built in the 50s or 60s and therefore it really doesn't have any history...

In my experience though, a house's level of historical interest doesn't necessarily take a nose dive once I start researching the people who lived there during the latter half of the 20th century. I just have to think about houses in my immediate neighbourhood where such well-known people like photographer and installation artist Stan Douglas, artist, author and neighbourhood historian Carole Itter,    arts teacher, painter, poet, photographer, multi-media artist and Nikkei activist Roy Kiyooka, character actor John Qualen, world-renowned crooner k.d. lang, broadcaster, musician, filmmaker, and actress Sook Yin Lee, two-time welterweight world champion boxer and Boxing Hall of Fame inductee Jimmy McLarnin, poet, author and neighborhood historian Daphne Marlatt, author and CBC radio personality Bill Richardson, and historian, writer, and award-winning childrens author Paul Yee have lived.

Though the houses where Roy Kiyooka, k.d. lang, and Daphne Marlatt lived and live are relatively modern houses, they stand on lots where once stood much older houses. So for me, the response "But my house has no history" is frustrating to say the least. 

The house at 423 Prior Street, a "Vancouver Special" if there ever was one, is a case in point.

I pass by this house every time I escort a History Walk of Strathcona. (See schedule...) It is in a stretch of alleyway between Dunlevy and Jackson Avenues that I guide my guests down as we head away from the main part of Hogan's Alley back toward what was the largely Italian section of the old East End. I never gave this house or address much thought until I met these two visitors from Italy: Irene Vecchio and Nicola Moruzzi.

Image courtesy of Nicola Moruzzi

Nicola and Irene came into my life last autumn by chance through Dr. Angela Clarke who curates the museum and archives at Vancouver's Italian Cultural Centre and my friend and neighbour Karen Knights who at the time volunteered for the Centre. Nicola and Irene were here in Vancouver doing research for a documentary called Revelstoke: A Kiss In The Wind. 

Image courtesy of Nicola Moruzzi

The documentary deals with the thirty months that Nicola's maternal great grandfather Angelo Conte spent here in British Columbia from 1913 to 1915.

Angelo Conte

From 1913, up until his tragic death on October 15, 1915, Angelo wrote fifty letters to his beloved wife Anna whom he had left behind pregnant in their home town of Valstagna in the Province of Vicenza in Veneto in northern Italy. Angelo had been working as part of a crew clearing out dynamite-blasted rubble from a side tunnel during the  construction of the Connaught Tunnel near Glacier, BC.

The plan had always been for Angelo to return to Valstagna for Anna and his baby daughter Gigetta and to bring them back with him to start a new life in Canada... 

October 20, 1915 Revelstoke News Herald article concerning the death of Angelo Conte

Angelo was killed just a week or so before he had planned to leave his job at Glacier and return to Italy. He was 28 years old when he died. Angelo's body was buried in Revelstoke.

Image of Anna and Gigetta courtesy of Nicola Moruzzi

Angelo's letters were passed down through the generations of Nicola's family, unopened until recently. After discovering his great grandfather story, Nicola decided to follow Angelo's steps, back in time and space, in order to bring him and his story back to life. 

The day I met Nicola and Irene we had arranged to get together so I could take them on a walking tour of Strathcona, Vancouver's old East End. 

We met at 696 East Hastings in front of the Heatley Block, a combination commercial and residential building built in 1931 by another Italian, hotelier Samuel Plastino. I took them on my regular route but focussed mostly on the places that had a connection with Italian immigrant history. 

It was an amazing experience for me for a number of reasons... first of all, as many of you know from my Sabina: Stunning Land - My Secret Italy blog, I am head over heals in love with Italy, the ancient Sabine region to the northeast of Rome in particular. So it was wonderful having two Italians on one of my East End walking tours. Nicola and Irene were delightful, and I did my best to speak as much Italian with them as possible...

But more than anything, hearing Nicola's bittersweet story of his great grandfather Angelo Conte's journey to Canada, so filled with hope and determination to make a better life here for Anna and little Gigetta, his willingness to work long and hard hours in very difficult and even dangerous situations to achieve that goal, the circumstance of Angelo's tragic death just weeks before his planned return trip to Italy, his burial in Revelstoke thousands of miles away from his remaining family in Italy... the story of the fifty love letters kept secret and unopened in the family for generations, and their impact on Angelo's descendants when their secrets were finally revealed fired my imagination and made me want to help in any way I could. 

Angelo always signed his letters, Tuo per sempre, "yours forever" Angelo

I learned from Nicola that Angelo had lived as a boarder at two addresses in Strathcona in 1913 before moving on to Kamloops and then Glacier. One of the addresses was 922 Main Street and another was at 423 Prior Street.  I set about to investigate these addresses and find out whatever I could.

In 1913, 922 Main Street was a two-storey wood framed building with a grocery store on the first floor, and rooms above. The 1913 directory shows this grocery's proprietor as Filippo "Philip" Branca. Philip, his wife Teresa, their 11 year-old daughter Annie, 10 year-old son Angelo, 7 year-old son Johnny and 1 year-old son Joseph lived above the store, probably sharing the space from time to time with a number of boarders. 

Angelo Branca

Angelo Branca, Filippo and Teresa's eldest son, would go on to become not only the Canadian amateur middleweight boxing champion but also one of Vancouver's most celebrated lawyers and eventually sit as a provincial supreme court judge. Think of it... Angelo must have known Angelo...

Sadly no trace of their two story building exists any more. A small section of it can be seen here to the left of the Clarendon Hotel in this 1908 Philip Timms photo. 

VPL Photo 7440

The original 423 Prior Street, seen below in this 1913 fire insurance map of Vancouver, did not survive either.

423 Prior in 1912

The original house was enlarged or replaced sometime before the next fire insurance map was published in 1930. You can see that the 1912 era house was set back farther from the road than both of its neighbours while the house that stood on the lot by 1930 stood much closer to the street.

423 Prior in January 1930

In the case of 423 Prior, the current house may be the third to stand on that lot. The 1913 Vancouver directory lists laborer Antonio Barasola as living at the house.

I did a search of the BC Archives Vital Events webpage but no listing for anyone with that surname turns up. I wasn't completely surprised. In my years working as a house history researcher I have found many instances in which the city directories misspelled non-British names. There was something about the name though that sounded familiar... Then it hit me... It might be that the real name was Barazzuol, a surname that I came to know reading Ray Culos' books on Vancouver's early Italian community. I knew that a Toby Barazzuol served as president of the Strathcona Business Improvement Association...

So I did a search for an Antonio Barazzuol on the BC Archives Vital Events page and Bingo! I found a May 10, 1920 death record for an Antonio Barazzuol who died in Vancouver at the age of 45.

Transcribing errors in the 1911 census made it challenging to find Antonio and his wife Antonia, but when I finally was able to track them down, they were indeed at 423 Prior Street living with nine boarders in their small house. All of the men worked as labourers digging ditches for the city sewer system. Did Angelo try his hand at this when he first came to Vancouver?

  

Curious, I contacted Toby Barazzuol via Facebook and asked him about his family's history in Vancouver... if he had a great grandfather named Antonio who had lived at 423 Prior. 

Photo courtesy of Toby Barazzuol

The interesting thing is that Antonio was indeed Toby's great grandfather and that the family, like Angelo's, came from the Veneto, but that the Barazzuols did not have a memory of the family living in the 400 block of Prior.

So here in one fell swoop I was able to not only shed some light on Toby's family history but arrange for the two great grandsons of Angelo and Antonio to meet each other 100 years after they shared a roof together on the 400 block of Prior Street!

A short while after Nicola and Irene met with Toby Barazzuol, Toby's father Frank Barazzuol and his uncle Bill Barazzuol, and their friend Vancouver Italian-Canadian historian and author Ray Culos for Dim Sum at the Pink Pearl on Hastings Street.

Toby Barazzuol and Nicola Moruzzi chat while Irene Vecchio documents the conversation at the table

Bill Barazzuol, Nicola Moruzzi, Irene Vecchio, Ray Culos, and Frank Barazzuol

There is so much more to this ongoing story... Nicola came back to Vancouver this May with his producer Leonardo Baraldi to do more research and work on Crowdfunding for the documentary. 

This September Nicola and Irene will return to Vancouver with a film crew to complete the filming of the documentary here in Vancouver, as well as in Kamloops and in Revelstoke where Angelo's grave is. If all goes well, Revelstoke: A Kiss In The Wind should be ready for release at a film festival near you sometime around the 100th anniversary of Angelo's death. 

I can't wait to see the film when it is completed... In the meantime, click here on the words SHORT TEASER to see the video that Nicola put together to promote the documentary... And if you ever think that your house has no history... think again!

 

There is a Facebook Page for this documentary. If you are a Facebook user and "Like" the page, you can keep abreast of all the news relating to this documentary project. 

The documentary's director Nicola Moruzzi was recently interviewed by CBC West. Click here to listen to the interview. 

Most importantly, you can help fuel a time machine by donating to this documentary. Click on this link to reach the crowdfunding page for REVELSTOKE: A KISS IN THE WIND.

GRAZIE

BOXING EAST ENDERS: Can You Put A Name To A Face?

Boxing East Enders outside the Kiwassa Club at Keefer and Vernon sometime between 1941-1943

Over the past years my work as a house history researcher at the City of Vancouver Archives and as a Neighbourhood History Walk guide, and more recently as a blogger, has brought me into contact  with a lot of people delving into the research of their own family histories, the history of their old family homes, working to piece together the threads of the tapestry that is the story of their ancestors and how they came to live in this country.

More often than not, as a result of these meetings there is a mutually beneficial exchange of information. Either I have already done some research on a house or person that can help them out, or they have some family information and images that help me in my research. In the end, we are all working to bring to light and preserve the stories and histories of people and places in Vancouver that have slipped or are slipping from our collective memories.

Every day we walk by houses that may register physically, but do we stop to think about who built those houses, and for whom? How much value do we place on an old run down house when we don't know its story? ... And the name of the builder and that of the first occupant is only the beginning. 

So here is an example. This unusual brick house on the south side of the 600 block of East Georgia Street was built in 1894 by a County-Mayo, Ireland-born brick layer named John Henry Freney. 

This house was part of a rather large research project that involved about 16 houses on the 600 block of East Georgia. I was sitting at my usual spot near the City Directories at the City of Vancouver Archives when I realized that the woman sitting across from me was researching exactly the same block. It turns out that she was the granddaughter of John Henry Freney. At this point in my research I had his name from the water service records but knew nothing about him. Here before me was a living descendent, who was not only able to tell me all sorts of things about him and about his wife Mary Catherine "Mame" Gibbons but also was able to give me their photographs. Mame Gibbon's parents were David Gibbons and Sophia Catherine Gibbons, and it was for his future in-laws that he built the house.

Mary Catherine "Mame" Gibbons and John Henry Freney, courtesy of Betty Anne Meek

Talk about being in the right place at the right time. Another such serendipitous meeting at the archives was when I met researcher Gary McDonald. Gary was researching the history of his grandfather, a firefighter named John Andrew McDonald. Through Gary I was able to receive a number of archival images of old houses and buildings in the neighbourhood, including this one of a house on the south side of the 1200 block of Venables.

John Andrew McDonald on front porch of 1240 Venables in the early 1900s, courtesy of Gary McDonald

 These houses were swept away in the 1940s when the block was industrialized. Oddly enough though, a number of these houses were moved two blocks away, and one of the houses in this photo still stands, in a rather altered state, as 1021 Odlum Drive, just across the street from my old house on the same block, where my house history research adventure began in 1995.

Among the photos that Gary gave me was one of Fire Hall No. 5 which used to stand on the SE corner or Vernon Drive and Keefer Street.

Fire Hall No. 5 and Captain John Andrew McDonald courtesy of Gary McDonald

In 1911, Firehall No. 5 received its first motorised hose engine. Here is City of Vancouver image FD P12 commemorating the event.

For whatever reason, by the late 1930s this building ceased to be used as a Fire Hall. Sometime in the late 1930s, the building was converted into a boys club called the Vernon Drive Junior G-Men's Club, and operated as such until the late 1940s when the building was converted into the  Kiwassa Girls Club.

But it was during its time as the Vernon Drive Junior G-men's Club that the picture of the boxers at the top of the page was taken. The photo was taken sometime between 1941 and 1943, and shows six young boxers lined up along the north wall of the old Fire Hall building.  The photo came into my possession via former Strathcona resident Paul Rossetti Bjarnason. Paul's uncle Hector Rossetti is the young man third from the left.

According to Paul's friend, Joe Di Palma, the people in the photo from left to right are as follows:

1. Unidentified
2. Phil Palmer (Felice di Palma) - 716 Hawks
3. Hector Rossetti - 776 East Georgia
4. Unidentified
5. Harry Smith
6. Unidentified  

Phil Palmer was a well known East End boxer who taught a lot of the East End boys how to box. According to the Italian Cultural Centre's website, Joe's brother Felice Di Palma was born in Civitanova del Sannio in Molise, Italy in 1922 and fought under the name of Phil Palmer.  This naturally talented boxer was to go from Vancouver all the way to New York city by way of his fists. This altar boy from Sacred Heart Church was to fight 41 professional fights: 34 wins, and seven losses. It is reported that he fought under the assumed name to avoid his mother discovering his boxing career!

I met Paul, like I have met a lot of other former Strathcona residents, in front of my house. I was likely gardening or raking leaves or something and Paul was cycling through his old neighbourhood and had stopped to look at the rowhouse where I live. You can always tell a former East Ender by the way they stop and look up at the houses... Anyway, Paul and I got to talking about East End history and we have been in intermittent contact since then. 

The other day we bumped into each other when I was working for Gourmet Warehouse during Christmas At Hycroft. Paul mentioned he had a photo to send... This one with the boxers. 

Both Paul and his friend Joe are interested in identifying the three other men in the picture. Can you help? If you know anything about the men in the picture, please leave a comment below. Your help in solving this mystery would be much appreciated.

HELP NAME OUR NEW EAST END LIBRARY the MARY LEE CHAN BRANCH

Photo courtesy of Adrian Zator

More than two and a half years ago I wrote a post about a letter I wrote to Mayor and Council with a cc. to the Library Board in which I thanked them for their plans to go ahead with the long awaited East End Library Branch on the 700 block of East Hastings. The people in Strathcona have been lobbying and working for a new East End Branch for over 15 years. This full service neighbourhood branch is long overdue.

In that letter I suggested that the name of this new East End Branch should be called the Mary Lee Chan Branch Library in honour of the founder of the Strathcona Property Owners & Tenants Association (SPOTA). It is a result of the leadership, community building skills and tenacity of Mary Lee Chan and the people of all backgrounds living in the East End who worked with her that we even have our old historic East End neighbourhood today--not to mention large swaths of Chinatown. See Chuck Davis' overview of the story.

A while back I attended an Open House put on by the Library at the Strathcona Community Centre. The architectural plans for the new library and much heralded housing component for single moms and their kids in the upper floors was being introduced for feed back. I talked to the architect Bruce Haden who is a Strathcona neighbour about the layout. It is a bright, modern looking building with a white brick and glass façade. 

 

Though it does not necessarily give a nod to its heritage neighbourhood context (a cornice would have been nice) I can live with that. It looks like everyone has come up with a plan that will provide a long awaited and much needed amenity to my East End neighbourhood, both in the library and housing component. The Library's white bricks and glass, its books, programmes, and bright lights, and the healthy traffic they will generate, will be a welcome change on a section of East Hastings that has been missing its former glory days.

In these coming months while the plans for the library are being finalized I would like to again urge everyone to support the naming of our new East End library the Mary Lee Chan Branch in honour of the woman who spearheaded the movement to save Strathcona in the 60s.

Please, please, please take a moment from your time and use this link to support naming the new East End Library Branch to be built on the 700-block of East Hastings the Mary Lee Chan Branch Library. http://www.vpl.ca/survey/index.php?sid=19939 

Recognition of Mary Lee Chan and SPOTA's roll in saving and preserving Vancouver's oldest neighbourhood is long overdue. 


Thank you!

The Things I Find Cleaning Up The Home Office

CVA Photo Bu P219 circa 1886

Today I have the house to myself and I am catching up on a number of house history work projects, at the same time doing some laundry, cleaning up my home office and packing for a trip...

Most of the time I hate multi-tasking... I never seem to be any good at it, but tonight there is a flow. I seem to be getting things done. Even Smokey our cat is behaving and letting me focus on my work.

I confess, I am one of those people who has piles of paper everywhere. Fire insurance maps from old house history projects, newspaper clippings relating to the history of Strathcona, my historic East End Vancouver neighbourhood, receipts for doing taxes, old photos... It's a mess. But I usually know where things are if things are left undisturbed.

Tonight as I was going through one of these piles I found an old photocopy of a City of Vancouver Archives photo of a house that used to stand on the west side of Westminster Avenue, now Main Street, just south of Prior Street. Lately the CVA has been digitalizing their photos and making high res versions for download online so before I tossed the photocopy I searched their website for the photo number Bu P219 and "click" I downloaded it and added it to my collection of images for my East End Neighbourhood History Mapping Website project.

This amazing image shows the exterior of T. J. Janes' residence as well as a livery and feed stable. The Archives website says the photo was taken in 1886 and that the house and stable were on Lots 5 and 6 of Block 23 of District Lot 196.

According to the 1891 Canada Census, Feed and Wood Merchant Thomas John Janes was born in England and was Methodist. In 1891 he lived with his Kingston, Ontario-born wife Mary Jane Leatherland and their six children. Sons William J., Albert Thomas, and Charles R. Janes were all born in Ontario. Daughters Mary Levina (July 12, 1885) and Annie Florence (January 7, 1887) and son Roy Franklin Janes (January 14, 1890) were all born in Vancouver. Mary was born in 1885, the year before Granville was renamed Vancouver. Her brother was born in Ontario in 1881 so they would have moved to the West Coast between those years so I checked the old BC directories available online through the Vancouver Public Library and found this listing in the 1884-85 BC directory that shows Thomas Janes worked early on as a butcher for George Black, who owned the Granville Market.

 For some reason, Janes is not listed in the next available directory, the one from 1887. By the time the 1888 directory was published, Janes was established as a feed and grain merchant on Westminster Avenue, today's Main street.

Excerpt from 1888 Vancouver City Directory

Here is the 1892 directory listing, showing that by that time, the house was numbered 913 Westminster Avenue.

1892 Directory listing for Thomas J. Janes

Here are a number of directory listings for Janes through the years. From time to time he is listed as T. J. and even D. J. James. 

1894 Directory listing

If Miss M. James is in fact Mary Janes, then this is the first time that one of the Janes' sons or daughters is mentioned.

1895 Directory listing

 By 1896, the Janes had moved from Westminster Avenue a couple of block to the north and east to a house at 416 Keefer. In 1896 he is listed asa teamster while the 1897 directory lists him as a dairyman but he may have been driving drays for a dairy and not necessarily changed jobs.

1896 Directory listing

1897 Directory listing

In 1898 Janes' surname is misspelled again.

1898 Directory listing

The 1899 directory listing shows a number of Thomas' sons as well 

1900 - 1901 directory listing

1902 Directory listing

By the time the 1904 Directory was published the address of the Janes' house was renumbered from 416 to 444 Keefer, a not unusual event during this time when most of the East End's undeveloped lots were being built on. The 1904 Directory lists T. J. Janes as a fruit grower.

1904 Directory listing

By the time of the 1911 census, the family had moved out of the East End to a house in South Vancouver on 43rd Avenue near Nanaimo. This would be today's 45th Avenue. 

Around this time, the area where their original house was on Westminster Avenue, now Main Street, was being redeveloped. This is how the area where the house was looks now. The Janes house would have stood on the right-hand portion of the building and the roadway to the stables behind would have been on the left hand side of the building.

Photo courtesy of Patrick Tam

VanMap seems to indicate that this new building was built in 1909 but Heritage Vancouver's Building Permit website's information shows a 1912 building permit application. Then again, that might have been for warehouses and factories on the back end of the lots. 

Thomas John Janes died on October 14,1926 but the circumstances of his death are a bit of a mystery as there is no death certificate for him--at least under his correctly spelled name--among the BC Archives Vital Events Listings. He may have died out of province. Thomas is buried in the Old Section of Vancouver's Mountain View Cemetery in Plot 2/02/004/0002. Mary Jane Janes died in Vancouver on November 8, 1945 at the age of 92 and was buried in the Old Section of Mountain View Cemetery in Plot 2/02/004/0001. 

If you have any information on the Janes family here in Vancouver, please leave a comment. Also, if you have any old photos of family members who lived in East End (Strathcona) Vancouver, or their houses, I hope you would consider sharing them for my East End Neighbourhood History Mapping Project.