Archer and Priscilla White
Joseph Henry Archer White and Annie Priscilla Boyd
Logic would suggest that Joseph Henry Archer White might have been called Joe or possibly even Henry but for reasons unknown it was decided to call him by the last of his three names, Archer or Arch, as he was known to his friends. I was once told that the name Joseph had nothing to do with his Revolutionary War ancestor but was chosen because it was the name of a favourite uncle on his mother’s side of the family. Henry was, of course, for his father, William Henry White, but there was never an explanation for the name Archer other than it was a name that his mother, Florence Pritchard, liked.
Archer, like his younger sister Bessie, was born on the family farm located on lot 20 of the eighth concession near the village of Greenbush, Ontario. He went to the local elementary school and appears in the same class picture as his older siblings, Wilma and Bessie. When he reached high school age he did not go to Brockville Collegiate as had his two sisters. Instead he went to Athens High School located in the nearby village of Athens, Ontario. The reason for this was unclear although it may simply have been a matter of proximity. My Aunt, Wilma, once said to me that, “Archer wasn’t very interested in school.” This may also have been part of the reason for the selection of the local high school in Athens rather than the more prestigious Brockville Collegiate. This was not, in any event, a subject that was ever discussed around the dinner table, as it was always fairly clear that Archer was very interested in the education of his children and grandchildren.
My father rarely spoke of his childhood years and it can only assumed that he lived the busy life of the member of a farm family. He was well versed in all of the tasks that go with life on a farm and this was amply demonstrated when he, my mother and godparents, Bob and Madelene Parkin, purchased a “ranch” in the Cariboo in 1945. The purchase of this property also suggests that this was a life-style that he wanted to resume. I’m not sure that it was a life-style that my mother would have chosen for herself.
Archer probably graduated from high school in 1928 or 1929. These were clearly not propitious years in which to enter the job market but there is no indication that he remained on the farm to help his father. The reasons for this are unclear but may have had more to do with the economics of the time than they did with family dynamics. I recall that he worked briefly for one of the banks but did not enjoy this kind of work. The only solid evidence of employment comes, as a result of a legacy of $5000 that had been left to him by one of his uncles. The year in which this money was inherited is not clear but it would probably have been in 1931 or 1932. In the 1930s this was a substantial sum of money and Archer used this windfall to purchase rental cabins in the town of Williamsburg, Ontario. The Williamsburg cabins were located in close proximity to the office and home of Dr. Mahlon Locke.
Dr. Mahlon W. Locke was an astonishing phenomenon. Known colloquially as "the toe-twister" of Williamsburg, Dr. Locke became "the focus of international attention" during the 1930s for his unorthodox treatment of arthritis, according to Barbara Clow in her 1992 article. Celebrities and ordinary people suffering from arthritic pain flocked by the thousands to his clinic in the tiny south-eastern Ontario town of Williamsburg to have their feet "manipulated" by Dr. Locke, to relieve their pain at $1.00 per day. Estimates of the numbers he treated during his peak years range from 1000 to 2500 patients per day. His clinics were so popular that the entire town profited from his medical practice: tea rooms, chair-rentals, hotels, and other auxiliary facilities were established to cater to the crowds. And retailers across both Canada and the United States sold his specially-designed Lockewedge Shoes at $10.00 per pair. While arthritis sufferers praised Dr. Locke, physicians in Canada took a more restrained, even sceptical, view; and doctors in the United States were positively vocal in their condemnation of the Ontario celebrity doctor as a "quack".
It is not certain over what period of time that JHA owned and operated these cabins. A postcard sent home to his mother was post marked 1935 so it can be assumed that he ran this business until 1938 or possibly as late as the spring of 1939. I recall him once mentioning that he was on a ladder painting the family home in Greenbush on the day that war was declared in September of 1939. It was in that same year that he decided to leave Ontario and move to British Columbia. The reasons for this decision were never mentioned but may have had something to do with family dynamics and the difficulties that any young man might have living at home after a taste of independence. At 28 years of age JHA* was older than the usual military volunteer although I recall that he had made an effort to obtain his private pilot’s license but was unable to complete the training for medical reasons. I also recall that he briefly served with a militia artillery unit in Vancouver but possibly for the same medical reasons did not continue with military service.
The mobilization of manpower during the war forced men to remain in industries that were deemed in support of the war effort. In the case of JHA this was the chainsaw industry. There is no record of the company for which he worked or what he did. The only available evidence is in the form of two ageing snapshots that were sent home to his parents in Ontario. These would suggest that he was involved in the demonstration and sales of this equipment. The period between 1939 and 1945 was rarely mentioned and obviously not one of the high spots in his life.
It was, however, during these years that he met my mother Annie Priscilla Boyd or simply Priscilla, as she was called by family and friends. Priscilla was a recent graduate of the Social Work program at the University of British Columbia and worked in the Vancouver area. To the best of my knowledge they met at the rooming house where a number of young men and women were living. This was probably in 1940, as they were married on October 18, 1941. The marriage took place in Medicine Hat, Alberta where my mother had grown up and her parents still lived. Following the marriage the young couple took a honeymoon trip east to Ontario where the bride was introduced to the groom’s family. Following this trip they returned to Vancouver and purchased a house at West Bay in West Vancouver. This house would probably best be described as a cottage but it remains more or less in its original form to this day.
One of the more important aspects of this new home was its location next door to another young couple, Bob and Madelene Parkin. Bob was a great outdoors man and it was not long before he and JHA were taking hunting trips into the interior of the province using gasoline which had been hoarded in a drum buried in Bob’s back yard. It was during one of these trips that the two men decided that after the war and they were released from war industry they would form a partnership and purchase a rural property in the Cariboo. I have no idea what my mother must have thought about this idea, as I was much too young to be privy to any of the discussion. By any standards it was likely to be quite an adventure. The only person with real experience in farming and livestock was my father. My mother was a talented musician with a licentiateship in music from the University of Toronto as well as an Arts Degree from UBC – not to mention the diploma in Social Work. Madelene was a city girl who had left school on graduation and worked for the Hudson Bay Company retail outlet in downtown Vancouver. Bob, however, was a man of many talents. He could turn his hand to any electrical or mechanical project and was, in addition, an experienced hunter and outdoors man. It is not clear how or why the property at Forest Grove was selected but it is likely that Bob and JHA had visited it during one of their hunting trips towards the end of the war. It was, at that time, owned by a man called Eck Phillips and officially known as the Forest Grove Trading Post. In addition to all of the features associated with a small Cariboo ranch running about 100 head of cattle there was a store, post office, lodge* and guiding business. It was purchased by both families and jointly operated with responsibilities divided according to the various abilities of the new owners. My father took over the store and advised with regard to the ranch. My mother became the postmistress and Madelene ran the household and rooming house. Bob was in charge of all of the outside work including the operation of the ranch. Forest Grove was purchased September 1, 1945* and we all moved from West Vancouver by the sea to the Cariboo. I celebrated my third birthday at Forest Grove.
At various times during the years we all lived together at the “Grove” new money making ideas were introduced to augment the existing activities. One year we cut Christmas trees and according to the record on one of Madelene’s photos shipped 21,000 trees to the coast. Another year we raised turkeys – hundreds of them. For the most part these were not very clever birds but I do recall a turkey gobbler who was named Alexander the Great. He may not have been clever but for a small boy he was to be avoided. He attacked without just cause and could inflict a nasty bite. I gave him a wide berth in spite of instructions to the contrary that essentially suggested that he was to be shown who was master. I had a similar experience with one of dad’s horses – a big buckskin called Sonny. I was sent to the far field to ride him back to the barnyard. I arrived leading the horse much to the annoyance of my father who insisted that I get up and ride him. I explained that I had tried but the horse had refused to move. I was issued a pair of spurs and told to try again. It was a brief ride. I used the spur, probably a trifle vigorously, and the next thing I realized I was headed up into the sky from which flight I was rudely deposited into the muck of the barnyard and left most unhappy about the experience.
Ruth Lake In 1946 we began to visit a local lake called Ruth Lake. This mostly due to a couple that my mother and father had come to know quite well through the store and the post office. Ron and Florence Riley had taken up a homestead on the lake directly across from the saw mill owned by Ray Devore. The story that is told regarding the acquisition of Buckhorn Point revolves around a rowboat ride for a picnic on the point presumably in the summer of 1946. Clearly, the lunch was a success and by 1947 we had purchased twenty acres of property including the point of land where the picnic took place.
My recollection of these events is very vague. I do recall accompanying my mother to the log cabin on the lake now owned by the Albert family. There were, in fact, two cabins, both still standing. We used the small guest house located on the left of the cabin where we would have lunch. This property was at that time owned by a friend of Bob Parkin’s called Manley Romans. It had been acquired in 1943 or 1944 from Mel McGuffin who, as I recall, was a great builder of shiplap boats many of which used to be visible along the shoreline on the bottom of the lake. The last of these that I remember seeing was on the west side of the big island at about the mid point between the north and south ends.
Two memories of our visits to the Roman’s property stand out in my mind. The first was being introduced to green olives. I recall being told that it was an acquired taste but in my case the acquisition was swift and I continue to retain a fondness for this type of olive. My other memory was less pleasant and that was of a large leach which attached itself to my foot as it rested in the muddy bottom of the lake. My father felt that I had made far too much of a fuss over this harmless creature but I wanted it removed as quickly as possible and for a time was reluctant to return to the water.
It was in the summer of 1947 that our cabin was constructed on Buckhorn Point. The cabin became a haven for both the Parkin and White families where they could escape from the constant demands of the store at Forest Grove. In the summer months the numerous members of the extended Parkin family (and their friends) also used the cabin which at that time came complete with a cook supplied by the lodge at Forest Grove. Later many of the families that had been introduced to Ruth Lake at Buckhorn staked property and built cabins of their own. These families included the Mackenzie’s, Smiths and the Hardy’s. They were followed by the Creso’s and the Richards who were Americans that had come to our place in the fall of the year to hunt. Still later arrivals on our side of the lake were the Loree’s and the Lambert’s. In my mind the years run together and my memories are not specific to any particular time frame. Ruth Lake, however, became central to our lives.
My mother and father in later years retired to the lake where they constructed a new home on the point in 1967. They remain on the property to this day resting beneath the memorial stone erected at the time of my father’s death in 1994.
Forest Grove Trading Post Forest Grove Trading Post was a busy place. Not long after we arrived a second log home was built to provide living quarters for the White and Parkin families. An addition was also constructed on the back of the “lodge” to allow for a new kitchen and a vast dining room which could seat nearly twenty people to dinner. Indians came to sell their fur and buy supplies for their homes on the Canim Lake Indian Reservation. American hunters arrived in the fall to stay at the “lodge” and were guided by local Indians in the employ of the partnership. The store and the post office served the local community and were a gathering place for a great many interesting people. I assume that the business prospered until 1951 when tragedy struck. Early one winter morning we awoke to a fire in the store. By the time it was discovered it was too late to do anything but watch the building being consumed by flames. I was afflicted by chicken pox on that particular winter morning and was settled on the couch beneath the window facing the store. I clearly recall the windows being broken above my head, as the ammunition in the store exploded with the result that shell casings and lead bullets were widely distributed in all directions including through the window above my head.
Medicine Hat, Alberta
The loss of the store was a major blow to the economics of supporting two families and resulted in some very difficult decisions. I, of course, have no recollection of the discussion. By that time I had completed grade three at Forest Grove Elementary school under fairly basic conditions and was certainly not ready for a transition to a big city school but it was clear that we had to move so that my father could find employment. This marked a temporary end to the stay of our family in Forest Grove and we packed our bags and headed for Medicine Hat, Alberta where JHA was to take up a job in my grandfather’s wholesale tobacco and confectionary business.* We spent three years in Medicine Hat and I have many memories of that time. My dad had a house built not far from where my grandparents lived and went off to work every morning in a shirt with a tie. My brother Doug was born in 1952 during this interlude in Medicine Hat.
To the best of my knowledge my mother did not work while she was in Medicine Hat. I know that she became very involved as an accompanist for a singer called Arlene Lewis. Arlene was the wife of a local doctor and was, I think, quite talented. I know that it would be an understatement to say that my father was not happy in Medicine Hat. He tried to make the best of it and joined the local Masonic Lodge in order to meet men of his age group. He and my grandfather got along quite well and he had no difficulty with the work other than for the fact that JHA never really liked to work for anyone else. The major difficulty was, I suspect, with my grandmother, Bernice Boyd. She was a clever and outspoken woman who had a very sharp tongue as well as a mind of her own. She and my father clashed on many occasions and there would be hard words followed by a process of making up. I know that my father was a very tense and angry man in these years and I did my best not to cross him.
Return to Forest GroveIn 1953 we sold our house and packed our belongings into an old black Monarch and drove through the United States back to British Columbia. We spent a few days in Vancouver and then continued on to Forest Grove where we once again established ourselves at Forest Grove Trading Post. We must have arrived in the spring of the year because I recall completing grade seven at Forest Grove Elementary School under the tutelage of a Mr. Luxton. I have only a general idea of the economic circumstances that had allowed our return and believe that it related to the lumber business. Things went on more or less as they had prior to our departure although we lived in the “lodge” because Bob and Madelene had taken over the cabin and constructed a small kitchen in the area that had once been my bedroom.
This was also a difficult period of time. I was a little older and my memories are a little clearer. I know that we nearly lost another of our buildings to fire on two occasions. The first was, as a result of a lightning strike on one of our power poles. The bolt of lighting traveled along the wires and into the building where there was a ground on a water pipe. A small fire was started but brought under control without difficulty. The second event was of a more serious nature. I had been picked up on my way home from school by Bob Parkin and on arrival at the house he had instructed me to go into the kitchen and start the fire. He indicated that he was going to go and start our Lister diesel electric lighting plant which provided the power for all of the buildings we owned. I was busy at my task when there was a loud explosion. Some of the window panes of the kitchen window that faced the room housing the “light plant” shattered and I was completely bewildered. I ran outside to see Madelene enter the room which housed the Lister diesel. She walked into a solid wall of fire and came out dragging Bob who had been badly burned. For some reason there had been an electrical short and the fumes in the room had been ignited resulting in the explosion. There followed a great deal of confusion as Bob was the only qualified “first aid” man in the area and in his terribly injured state had to give directions to those who were trying to preserve his life. The nearest hospital was in Williams Lake and he was loaded into the back of a truck and delivered there as rapidly as possible. He survived his burns but it took a year or more for him to make a full recovery. This included a long stay at a Workman’s Compensation Rehabilitation Center.
We remained in Forest Grove for the year I was in grade eight. I only have brief memories of this period. I recall getting up early in the morning with my dad to feed the cattle with their staple breakfast of hay bails and turnips that had been grown in one of our fields and stored over the winter in the root cellar. I also remember our antiquated telephone system. We had a phone in the living room of the “lodge” with a hand crank to dial the number of shorts and longs to establish contact with our neighbours. Our number was five shorts but it was possible to pick up the hand set at any time and listen to the various conversations taking place.I left Forest Grove in 1955, the year I completed grade 8 at the local school, and I believe that the property was sold in the same year. I went away to boarding school on Vancouver Island and my mother and father relocated to West Vancouver. Initially they lived in a small duplex on Duchess Avenue but later bought a house at 980 Wildwood Lane. The Wildwood Lane house was located at the bottom of the British Properties with the back yard facing the main road to Horseshoe Bay. JHA worked in real estate, at first, for a small company called Wilson and Kofoed. He specialized in the sale of agricultural properties throughout the province. This was not employment to which he was constitutionally suited as it often required a great deal of time to show a property only to have a sale fall through at the last moment. I was away at school during much of this period of time but could certainly feel the tension on my visits home for Christmas and over the summer holiday. My mother had also gone back to work during this period. She was a trained social worker and was employed by the Ministry of Social Services to inspect rest homes for the elderly. This was to ensure that they met government standards. At some point in the mid sixties, and I am uncertain of the exact year JHA left Wilson and Kofoed and joined the staff of Guaranty Trust as a real estate appraiser. I think that this was a salaried position or possibly payment was made per appraisal. In any event income was more predictable.
I graduated from high school in June of 1960 and moved back home for the winter months while I attended the University of British Columbia. In the summers from May through the end of August I was away with the Navy taking training. My memories of the months I spent at home between 1960 and 1968 are not very clear. I was either busy at university or after 1965 at work in Aldergrove where I had taken a position as a social studies teacher. I was married to Mitzi Shoshi a colleague I had met while teaching in Aldergrove in July of 1968 and moved out to Aldergrove. My mother and JHA retired to Ruth Lake in the fall of 1968 and my wife and I purchased the house at 980 Wildwood Lane.
My father was 57 years of age when he retired and my mother 56. They made their permanent home on Ruth Lake but travelled extensively in the winter months usually returning to the lake in March or April. They had approximately 20 years of healthy retirement at the lake but by the mid 1980s my mother was starting to manifest signs of memory loss or dementia. This process came on very gradually but by 1987 was no longer manageable at home. Fortunately plans had been made for admission to Mill Site Lodge in 100 Mile House and mom made this transition in late 1987. She was to spend ten years there prior to her death in 1997. JHA carried on alone at the lake until 1992 but a lung disease called “fibrosing Alevolitis” gradually limited his activities and he was admitted to Mill Site Lodge in the fall of 1992. He spent two years at Mill Site and died there in August of 1994.There are a great many more details that could be added to this account concerning the retirement years of JHA and my mother but no records were kept of the various trips they made or other activities in which they became involved. In general, I think that the retirement years were good years for both of them and that the final period of poor health was reasonably short. I don’t believe that my mother suffered a great deal from her dementia other than in its very early phase was she was acutely aware of her loss of memory.
