John Henry Cross (July 17 1894 in Winnipeg - Mar 5 1967 in Maple Ridge) married
Elsie Margaret McAllister (c1894 -Nov 2 1918 in Vancouver ) in Vancouver on April 25, 1917.
Nina Ellen Archibald (Apr 15 1896-1982) in New Westminster Jan 21 1920.
EARLY YEARS
Jack was named after his maternal grandfather, John Henry Cross
He dropped out of school in grade 8 and started painting for his father. As a result, the company's name was changed to "Bernard Cross and Son: Wallpaper, paperhanging; painting". in 1911. Jack quickly found he hated painting!
He tried to enlist when the First World War broke out, but was refused because of a kidney infection.
MARRIAGES
Jack married a wealthy girl named Elsie MacCallister during the final year of the First World War. Her family did not approve of their new son-in-law. Elsie was well advanced in her pregnancy when an epidemic of Black Flu hit Vancouver. Jack felt a little ill himself, when he visited her in the hospital. He collapsed upon returning home. Elsie died, but the doctors managed to save the child within her womb.
As for Jack, they told him he had 24 hours to live unless he could flush his system out with water. He proceeded to pour glass after glass down his throat. That night he broke out into a sweat, and he survived.
Jack married Nina were married in January 1920.
FREINDSHIP WITH LEVERETT HATT
When they could, Nina and Jack liked to visit their good friends Leverett and Sadie Hatt. Leverett was an importer, who had asked Jack to go into business with him in the years prior to Dominion machinery. They remained lifelong friends. Dell remembers Leverett as being gentle in every way. Sadie really “wasn’t that special”, but he treated her as if she was the most desirable woman around and this gave Sadie incredible self-confidence. The Hatts were still around in 1951, when I (Roy L Hales) was given the middle name Leverett in his honour.
ANGLO AMERICAN TRADING CO.
When Ben came back from Europe, Jack was a secretary for Northwest Trading Company. The following year a department head. Then Gus Cowdry, his manager, approached him with the idea that they set up their own company.
According to the 1921 census, John H Cross and his family were living in a brick apartment building at 611, 7th Av East. There were a number of other families in the same building, including his parents Bernard and Agnes Cross. Jack was then a 26-year-old importer/exporter of machinery. His wife Nina was 25 and they had a 7-month-old baby named Della M Cross.
According to Gus' son, Jack Cowdry, Anglo American Trading co. sold anything from vegetables to chocolate cookies (which melted in the hot summer sun before they could be sold) to metal parts.
They found selling empty barrels to bootleggers more profitable. The United States experiment with prohibition gave birth to a vigorous bootleg trade in British Columbia. Thousands of gallons of moonshine supplemented the alcohol available in government controlled liquor stores. Sixty yachts, steamers and schooners from Vancouver carried the illegal fluid into American waters. The VANCOUVER WORLD claimed that “rum runners, gunmen, thugs and all the parasites which thrive in the miasma of the underworld of the Pacific Coast are fostered by the policy now in force.”
DOMINION TRADING CO.
Fearing that the law would discover their connection to bootlegging customers, in 1924 Jack and Gus founded Dominion Machinery. It was one of the industries set up on what had once been two large sandbars. By the Roaring Twenties, Granville Island housed some of the city’s largest manufacturing operations” Ocean Cement, Wright’s Canadian Ropes, National Pacific Roofing Corporation were among them.
Dominion Machinery purchased of all the equipment and 22 foot long boats, from a fish cannery. They had the stuff unloaded on the wharf at Granville Island. All the boats were sold off individually. They could put them into the water, but had no machinery to lift them out again. One customer had to drive his boat to the neighbouring marina in reverse – after discovering that the propeller he had just installed was backwards.
As Dominion Machinery bought up materials from sawmills, canneries and mining plants, a junk pile of parts grew up around the corrugated tin shed that served as its’ office.
The only bathroom was a 4 by 4, concealed from view, but suspended over the waters of False Creek. My grandmother Nina probably never used it. In contrast to Gus’ wife, whose advice was frequently sought by the two men, she had little involvement with the business. Her early visits to Dominion Machinery were primarily concerned with obtaining the car.
1931 Census - 2726, 79th Ave West
John H Cross - (Head, age 36, born Manitoba) - earned $5,000, merchant retail machinery - United Church
Nina Cross - (Wife, age 35, born New Brunswick) - Homemaker, United Church
Della M Cross - (Dau, age 10, born BC) - Student, United Church
Norma E Cross - (Dau, age 8, born BC) - United Church
John L Cross - (Son, age 8 mos, born BC) - United Church
THE DEPRESSION
Dominion Machinery survived the Depression by purchasing equipment from sawmills that were going bankrupt. Pipe fittings, nuts and bolts were readily saleable, as surviving companies often could not afford the luxury of buying these supplies new. The saws and other heavy equipment were put into storage in the hope that they might someday be of value. Either my grandfather Jack or Gus Cowdry would phone their millwright when there was more than 50 cents worth of work for him to do. That was how much his return tickets cost for train passage from his home in Horseshoe Bay, the ferry from North Vancouver and finally a tram to Granville Island.
Business was so slow that Gus grew vegetables on his lot to cut down the grocery bill. Nina couldn’t afford to buy her daughters new shoes, and had them stuff cardboard into the holes.
Dell remembers times that the family had to survive on crackers and peanut butter. One cannery offered to pay their bill in produce. Only the can's weren't labelled, so that you never knew if you were grabbing a tin of pears or soup. (more memories under Nina Archibald and Dell Cross)
Gus Cowdry died in Vancouver on May 16, 1935. His death certificate mentions a twenty-month bout with “carcinonia of the testicles”. The Medical Advisor describes this condition in connection to a tumor and evidenced by “episodes of frequent watery stools, coughing wheezing, flushed face.” Gus was confined to his room for much of the time prior to his death.
The Glenbow Archives in Calgary hold Augustus Cowdry's business papers from 1921-34: dealings with the British Columbia Department of Land - Forestry Branch, North West Trading Company, British Columbia Electric Railway Company, Dominion Machinery Company, and Gold Peak Gold Mines. Business papers, Vancouver. -- n.d. -- Consists of maps and plans of timber lands, lists of outstanding accounts, and other Dominion Machinery related papers.
Jack was able to pay his widow $25 a week for her share of the company.
He also gave $25 a month to his father Ben.
Dell started working for her father in 1936. She remembers her father purchasing some laundry machines somewhere, which were resold to Ken Swain’s laundry in Maple Ridge. Most of Dominion Machinery’s customers were sawmills. Lawrence Becks, from Hatzic, and Pete Hammer, from Mission, were both only initially able to pay off the monthly interest from their bills. There was also a Captain Denroche on Galiano Island, Captain Hubbard in North Vancouver, and Bert Summers from Vancouver.
“Best of All Cannery”, on Vancouver’s 4th Avenue, paid their bill off in canned goods. The tins were unmarked. Nina kept hers in the basement, but could never be sure if she was opening a can of peas, peaches or some other food. Jack probably gave some the produce to his workers and took some over to the widow Cowdry - for young Jack Cowdry remembers his family having some of it.
In 1937 a customer paid his bill with cash, and Jack decided to take the whole family on vacation. The brakes of his car gave out going down a hill - and all the kids had to lay flat in the back - but they made it to California intact. They visited the Dan Diego zoo, and went to Hollywood. Dell, then 17, remembers the night that she had to stay home and babysit (!!!) while her parents went out to a Hollywood nightclub where all the movie stars were. The trip took a sour turn when Jack ended up in the hospital with (kidney?) problems. He recuperated.
PROSPERITY COMES
Dominion Machinery eventually expanded to the point where Jack employed 20 men, his kid brother Bill among them.
Jack purchased 40 acres in Maple Ridge (including the Cross Ranch), a race horse named Star, and an auto-court.
RETIREMENT
He retired in 1960, when the landlord insisted factories were no longer wanted on Granville Island.
Jack and Nina Cross seemed to always be close to their children, but their Maple Ridge house was only a vacation place until 1960. That was when the city of Vancouver came to regard the factories on Granville Island as an eyesore. Jack, now 65, decided it was time to call it quits. His home in Maple Ridge became a centre for family gatherings, much as his father’s house had once been. People went there to sing around the piano, play bridge or just sit and talk.
Jack's sister Mae was always a special favourite. I remember her as the lady in the blue suit who usually talked about politics when she their vacation home in Maple Ridge. home. She was a fierce supporter of Prime Minister John Diefenbaker (1957 –1963) , the first Conservative Prime Minister since the First World War to win an overwhelming majority in the House of Commons. Mae organized his meetings and receptions on the West Coast. One of her most remembered statements: "If Deifenbaker falls, the West falls".
She once recruited Jack to serve as bartender but, as he was known to pour strong drinks, instructed him to ease off on the liqueur. No one got drunk on the weak drinks he poured that night!
When May lived in an apartment at Park Royal, Vancouver, she sometimes went to lunch with her niece Norm. May often put deposits down on nice things, but usually didn't have the money to pay the bill out. So one day when she and May visited a shoestore, Norm quietly went over to the clerk and paid May's bill. Dell mentions similar incidents, after Mae charged things at her dress shop.
Dell says her father grew restless, and drank more, after he retired. Jack probably felt more useful looking after the lumberyard, when Roy A Hales had a heart attack around 1963. Dell sometimes took him on her rounds as a door to door saleslady. He’d wait in the car and then ask "So how'd we do this time" when she came back from a house. After she made a sale: he'd ask how much, grin, and say "that's swell."
He was the kind of grandfather who allowed himself to become involved with my fantasies. As a five year old I told him that I was tough and, with a humorous glint in his eye, he agreed that I was probably too tough for him. We talked of sailing around the world. One day I decided to make a family history. (Would that I still had copies of what he said that day!) Jack laughed when I said "You've told me all the good stuff, now how about the bad?"
I was twelve when Jack died. I remember him lying peacefully on his front porch - only he had not meant to be there and someone called the ambulance. Bill Dickie, who would eventually become Dell's second husband, was the volunteer fireman who tried to revive him. Nina survived Jack by 15 years.
Subpages:
"Jack & The Spanish Lady" (his first marriage)
CHILDREN:
Keith Edie (1918-60?) His late wife's grandparents pointedly reminded Jack that he had no material possessions. They, on the other hand, were very wealthy and could afford to give Keith a good start in life. If Jack would give up custody of his son, they would bring him up as their own, but Jack must never let the boy know who his true father was. Jack agreed. Keith Edie eventually became an executive with MacMillan Bloedel. Jack remained an unknown onlooker on the fringe of his son's life. Sometimes he used to watch as Keith took off in his plane. He was at the airport when Keith flew off for the last time, in the mid 1960s. After the crash, he attended Keith's funeral. Jack's responce was somber when Dell tried to comfort him, "No, it's all right, he wasn't really my son. I never brought him up."
Norma Cross married Stan Moyes
Jack Cross married (A) Bernie, (B) Jocelynn
Della May Cross - See her page & newspaper story of her saying good-bye as Roy goes off to military camp