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SUPPLIED TITLE OF TAPE(S): History of the King family of Saltspring Island RECORDED: [location unknown], [198-?] SUMMARY: Mrs. King describes the history of her family, from her grandfather's shipping business (based in Europe) to the family settling on Saltspring Island. Most of the tape is about their life on Saltspring.

The item is a copy of "Me and my family", reminiscences of childhood and adult life in Victoria, Vancouver and the Gulf Islands by Mildred Irene Seymour, a Sidney teacher. Mrs. Seymour narrates many of her experiences as a teacher (teaching degree in Music) at Fanny Bay, Gabriola Island, Chemainus and Vancouver, describes her work with choirs and recounts her vacation travels through British Columbia, Canada and the western United States.

The item consists of an audio interview with Kathleen Tobin recorded in Victoria, B.C. on June 21, 1983.

Tape summary:
Track 1: Kathleen Tobin begins by describing her home and kitchen. She talks of the conversions of her stove and her preference for a wood burner. The household chores of her mother and family are described. In her teens, as a summer job she would berry pick. Describes tools and appliances in her mother's kitchen. Laundry was both done by hand and picked up by a laundromat. Daily diet. Dinner was an evening meal. Talks of favourite foods. When young, helping in kitchen not a responsibility. Foods considered bad by mother: mushrooms, bananas, and cucumbers. Not all that conscious of food value.

Track 2: Describes a favourite food. Home deliveries i.e. buying milk tokens. Advertising did not have a large effect on them. Describes domestic science at South Park. Found hand sewing boring and didn't get much out of cooking. Describes class. Neither mother nor school tried to directly teach a woman's role. Manners were taught at St. Ann's Academy. Talks of South Pender teaching career.

RECORDED: Ganges (B.C.), 1983-03-02 SUMMARY: TRACK 1 & 2: Mary Inglin discusses her father, Raffles Purdy, who was born in 1861 and emigrated from England to his sister's home in Nebraska in 1880. Move to Victoria via San Francisco. Purchase of a sloop. Blown ashore in San Juan Islands. Sailed again from Sidney. Camped for the summer at Beddis Beach, and helped build Beddis family's log house. Became teacher at Vesuvius School. Pre-empted 12;3 acres on Beddis Road. Built barn with Mr. Bullock's ox team. Planted 900 fruit trees. Married in 1911 in England. Problems of home-making. No electric power until 1948. Made and sold butter. Made own soap. Shipped apples to Victoria and the Yukon. Sheep shearing. Mrs. Inglin attended the Divide School, then Ganges School and the "Chicken House School". Dealing with fleas. Doing homework by candlelight. Social life: picnics, boat trips, beach parties, corn roasts and family dances. Cutting wood. Petition to keep cars off of Saltspring. Learning to drive a Model T Ford pick-up at age 16. Horses scared of cars. Difficulty of training horses to pass on right side of road in 1922. Becoming teacher at Divide School. First radio set. First piped water, 1942. Farm work. Summer work in Vancouver ;cannery. Running cafe on Robson Street. War work at Boeing. Return to Saltspring. Mr. Bullock coming to tea. His training of Dr. Barnardo's boys. Dressing up for his parties. Visiting Miss Pedder on Blackburn Road, with her room full of stuffed animals. Mr. Henry, Postmaster at Central.

Series consists of maps of the east coast of Vancouver Island. Volumes 1-9 cover different subdivisions of the study area. Volume 10 consists of localized studies. Maps are diazo prints.

SUMMARY: "The Hornby Collection" is an anthology of plays, documentaries, interviews and selected fiction for radio -- all written, prepared and produced in British Columbia. A documentary by Jan Williams, tracing the history of Saltspring Island and its first settlers through interviews and readings. Christopher Newton and Walter Marsh are the performers.

SUPPLIED TITLE OF TAPE(S): Ted Brown RECORDED: Ganges (B.C.), 1982-04-13 SUMMARY: TRACK 1: Ted Brown's recollections of life on Saltspring Island, various jobs on the prairie, and logging on the B.C. coast. Arrival on Saltspring via Victoria from Hull 1906. School at Cranberry Marsh until 1920. First job at Ganges Garage. Road work. Falling and bucking for Ollie Garner. Justice Sawmill. Farming at Metchosin. Longshoring at Victoria. McMorran's Garage, Victoria. Harvesting in Saskatchewan. Hand logging at Burgoyne Bay. Cusheon Cove mill. Tie mill. Cusheon Cove dock collapse. Work on Rainbow Road extension. Loading scows. K2 mill in Cranberry. Knee injury. Relief work, 1931. Firefighting. Cutting pulpwood. Singer Mills. Setting up mill in Cranberry. TRACK 2: Cutting firewood. Called up for military service, 1942, but medically rejected. Assistant civil defence warden. Running cattle and sheep at home. Job with water works. Sharpening mowers at Ganges Garage. Sale of garage. Island Freight agent. Spar tree accident, 1948. Snowstorm. Pipeline work, 1949-1950. Falling and bucking in Shepherd Hills. Chainsaw accident. WCB problems. Pipeline repairs. Placing new pipe from Maxwell Lake to Ganges and Harbour House to Vesuvius. Road widening. Survey work for Wolfe-Milner. Building Centennial Park. Private garden work. Retirement, 1972.

SUPPLIED TITLE OF TAPE(S): Daisy Cartwright RECORDED: Ganges (B.C.), 1982-07-10 SUMMARY: Daisy Cartwright provides her personal reminisces of Ganges and Saltspring Island, starting with her arrival there with her father in 1910.;

Constance Swartz was the daughter of English parents who had emigrated to Pender Island and Samuel Island. She grew up in Victoria and then lived in Vancouver and Kelowna where she worked as a newspaper correspondent interested in cultural affairs. She returned to Pender Island in the 1950s. The collection contains journals, notebooks, personal correspondence, drawings, poetry and publications pertaining to her family ca. 1923-1981; correspondence and published programs relating to cultural events, mostly in Vancouver, ca. 1930-1970; and correspondence and subject files relating to her life and work as a journalist in the Gulf Islands. Constance Grey was born 16 January 1902 at Victoria, the daughter of Ralph Geoffrey Grey and Winifred Grace Spalding Higgs Grey. Both parents were English immigrants: her father, who was a cousin of Earl Grey, the Governor-General, settled on Samuel Island; while her mother's family, the Higgses, settled on Pender Island. Through her mother Constance was related to the Spalding family also of South Pender Island. Constance ("Contie" or "Connie") and her sister Evelyn ("Evie" or "Eve") were educated at St. Margaret's School in Victoria. Later, Constance was sent to finishing school in England and to France to complete her education. Both sisters spent the summer of 1925 at the Church family ranch in the Chilcotin. On 27 May 1926 Constance married Englishman Barnard Box (born 1900). Their son, Rollo Grey Barnard Box, was born in 1928. Constance and Barnard Box were divorced in June 1933, at which time Constance changed her name back to Constance Grey, and her son's name to Rollo Grey. In July 1934, Constance married an American born musician, Ira Wesley Swartz (born 1902); they were divorced in 1946. Constance retained the name Constance Grey Swartz and never remarried; Rollo Grey subsequently changed his name to Richard (Rick) Johnson. Between the 1930s and 1950s Constance lived in Vancouver, first with Ira Swartz and later with her aunt and uncle, Mabel (Higgs) and Martin Grainger. She worked as a stenographer at a number of Vancouver law firms, hotels, advertising agencies, and cultural organizations. She was also involved in the arts community in Vancouver. During the late 1940s she worked in Kelowna as women's editor, reporter, music, drama, dance and art critic for the Kelowna Courier. In the 1950s she returned to Higgs family land on South Pender Island where she built a house called "Clakili". During the 1960s and 1970s she wrote a social and news column for the Gulf Islands Driftwood under the Chinook name "Cultus Coulee". On Pender Island she assisted her cousin Beatrice J.S.I.M. Freeman complete her book A Gulf Islands Patchwork. She died in 1981. Most notably, the records include musical programmes and correspondence relating to Vancouver's cultural life in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s, and files relative to the Gulf Islands in the 1960s and 1970s. Letters, journals, photographs, books, poetry, and songs make up the rest of the records. 152 photographs and negatives, including one photograph album, transferred to Visual Records accession 199009-009. File list available. Related records include: MS-0588, Martin Allerdale Grainger, MS-0604, Grey Family and MS-2698, John Granville Orton. The records were received by Richard Mackie and Jonathan Spalding from Mrs. Jean Connors of North Pender Island in the summer of 1988. Spalding and Mackie at the time were collecting garbage for Spalding Sanitary Services. Part of the collection had already been destroyed. Permission to deposit the collection in the Provincial Archives was subsequently obtained from Constance Swartz's daughter-in-law, Mrs. Jean Johnson of Regina, Saskatchewan, who was executor of Mrs. Swartz's will.

RECORDED: Sidney (B.C.), 1981-08 SUMMARY: TRACK 1: Born in England. Prospective husband in B.C. drank too much, so turned him down; instead, married William George Taylor, whose family had a stone quarry on Saturna Island. Sidney a shopping and supply centre for Gulf Islanders. Some Beacon Street businesses. Boat travel. Farming on Saturna. TRACK 2: Exchanged meat with neighbours. Went to dances on Mayne Island or Galiano Island, until community hall built on Saturna in 1935. Horse and wagon travel. Ran for school board. Had the only bathtub on the island.

News item. An archaeological dig on a 2000-year-old Indian village site, which is being reconstructed by First Nations high school students. It is both a prehistoric and a historic site. Archaeological spokesman explains how artifacts found on the site will be catalogued and used to trace the evolution of the people who used them. Archaeologist's description of the objects is very good, with close-up shots of the artifacts. No location is given, but dig is probably on one of the Gulf Islands, possibly North Pender or South Pender.

SUMMARY: Gulf Islands sounds, listed as "waves; foghorn; birds; ferry; whistle; wash." This tape is probably a component used in the production of Imbert Orchard's documentary sound program, "Fortunate Islands" (1976).

RECORDED: Hornby Island (B.C.), 1979-11-03 SUMMARY: Mrs. Smith recalls arriving at Hornby Island on the CPR boat "Charmer" in 1921 as an 18-year-old teacher. Describes quiet island life at that time. Most of islanders were sheep farmers. Tells of meeting her husband when she was teaching on Denman and he on Hornby, he courted her using a secret code they flashed between the islands. Communication between Hornby and Vancouver Island -- rowboat travel, supplies, mail, etc.