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McLennan, Bartlett
Person · 1868-1918

Bartlett McLennan (10 Nov. 1868-3 Aug. 1918) was born in Montreal, the twelfth child of Hugh McLennan and Isabella Stewart McLennan. Bartlett McLennan was educated at the High School of Montreal before attending the Royal Military College at Kingston, Ontario, where he graduated with high honors. On returning to Montreal, McLennan entered into business with his father, succeeding him as president of the Montreal Transportation Company in 1900. McLennan was also the vice president and later a director of the Williams Manufacturing Company, in addition to being a director of the Montreal Grain Elevating Company, the Royal Trust Company, the Bell Telephone Company, and other companies. McLennan was a life governor of the Montreal General Hospital and a supporter of the Montreal Sailors’ Institute.

McLennan was considered one of the foremost horsemen in Montreal, if not Canada. He was a leading member of the Black River Polo Club and for years was a prominent member of the Montreal Hunt Club. A supporter of horse racing, McLennan helped to organize the Montreal Jockey Club and participated in horse races and shows. He was also a golf enthusiast.
When World War I was declared, McLennan resigned his directorates, with the exception of the Royal Trust, in order to devote his time to war efforts, and disposed of the family holdings with the Montreal Transportation Company. In 1915, he joined the 5th Battalion of the Royal Highlanders of Canada as a lieutenant. When the 42nd Battalion, R.H.C. was organized, he joined as a junior major, but was shortly promoted to senior major and second in command, arriving in France with the Battalion in October 1915. Early in 1916, McLennan suffered injuries from his horse falling on him, but soon returned to France, and assumed command of the Battalion with the rank of lieutenant colonel in April 1917.

McLennan received the Distinguished Service Order in June 1917 in recognition of outstanding services in the engagement of 2-5 June 1916, near Ypres. He was killed in action at Amiens, France, and is buried in the Longueau British Cemetery in France. A granite monolith was erected to his memory at Longueau, but in 1926 it was brought back to McLennan family plot at the Mount Royal Cemetery. On 13 November 1921, a stained glass window dedicated to Bartlett McLennan and 42nd Battalion was unveiled at the Church of St. Andrew and St. Paul in Montreal.

McLennan, Hugh
Person · 1825-1899

Hugh McLennan (27 Jun. 1825-21 Nov. 1899) was born in Lancaster, Glengarry County, Ontario, the son of John McLennan and his first wife, Margaret Mackenzie. Hugh McLennan attended a Glengarry County common school and worked in Neil Stewart’s business at Vankleek Hill starting in 1840. Here he met his future wife, Isabella Stewart, for the first time. In 1842 at age 17, he moved to Montreal where he initially worked at the hardware store of Scott and Shaw before returning to the family farm for two years. In 1846 he went up river to Kingston and worked at a hardware store before taking on work as a purser on steamers running between Montreal and Kingston. In 1850, McLennan spent a year as an independent wharfinger and freight agent before returning to Montreal where he and his brother John founded the firm of J. and H. McLennan, a grain and shipping company, in 1853. In 1856, McLennan and his family moved to Chicago, Illinois, leaving John McLennan to carry on the Montreal side of the business. He returned to Montreal for less than a year in 1863, then back to Chicago, before finally settling in Montreal in 1867. In 1869, the business was expanded and incorporated as the Montreal Transportation Company, of which Hugh McLennan served as president until his death in 1899.

Beginning in 1882, McLennan was a director of the Bank of Montreal. He was also a director of the Canada Paper Company, the British America Fire and Life Assurance Company, and the Sun Life, and he was a petitioner for incorporation of various other insurance companies. He served as president of the International Coal Company Ltd. and the Black Diamond Steamship Company and as vice-president of the Williams Manufacturing Company. He had investments in the Montreal Street Railway Company, the Montreal Gas Company, and the Montreal Rolling Mills Company. McLennan was also president of the Montreal Board of Trade from 1872 to 1874, and its representative on the Montreal Harbour Commission from 1873 to 1897.

In addition to his business interests, McLennan supported the Art Association of Montreal and was a governor of McGill University from 1883 until his death. A member of the St Andrew’s Society, he was its president from 1885 to 1886. He was active in numerous Protestant benevolent societies such as the Montreal Sailors’ Institute and the Montreal Auxiliary Bible Society. He was also a member of the Athenaeum Club in Montreal.

McLennan married Isabella Stewart, daughter of Neil Stewart, in Bytown, Ontario, on 3 December 1851. Together the couple had thirteen children, nine of which survived to adulthood. McLennan died in Montreal. In 1901, his family established the Hugh McLennan Travelling Libraries in his memory.

McLennan, John
Person · 1789-1866

John McLennan (14 May 1789-27 Aug. 1866) was born in Kintail, Scotland, the son of Murdoch McLennan and Christina McLennan, daughter of Alexander McLennan. John McLennan came to Canada in 1802 with his parents on the “Neptune” and settled in the province of Quebec before moving to Glengarry County, Ontario, after the death of Murdoch. John McLennan taught school at Williamstown until he retired in 1823. That same year, the family took up land on the 4th concession of Glengarry. They lived there until 1847, when John McLennan bought property on the shore of Lake St. Francis, east of Lancaster. McLennan rose to become a man of some importance in southern Glengarry County where he held various minor offices, including clerk of the court at Williamstown, and worked as a conveyancer. McLennan was in the Glengarry militia, serving as a lieutenant in the War of 1812 and a captain during the Rebellions of 1837. He married his first wife, Margaret Mackenzie, daughter of Duncan Mackenzie, on 18 January 1819 in Montreal. Together the couple had four children before Margaret died in 1827. McLennan married his second wife, Mary McGruer, daughter of Alexander McGruer, on 12 January 1830. The couple had one daughter before Mary died later that year. McLennan married his third wife, Catherine McRae, daughter of Christopher McRae, on 29 November 1830. Together the couple had five children before Catherine died in 1843. John McLennan died in Lancaster, Glengarry County.

Donalda, Pauline
Person · 1882-1970

Pauline Donalda, an operatic soprano, teacher and administrator, was born Pauline Lightstone in Montreal on March 5, 1882. Her parents, Jews from Russia and Poland, changed their name from Lichtenstein to Lightstone upon their arrival in Canada.

As a child Pauline studied singing on scholarship with Clara Lichtenstein (no relation) at the Royal Victoria College, McGill University. In 1902, after being encouraged by the French tenor Thomas Salignac, Pauline moved to Paris on a grant from Donald A. Smith, Lord Strathcona, where she studied voice with Edmond Duvernoy, stage techniques with Paul Lhérie, speech with Pierre Berton, and Italian with Babette Rosen. In honour of her benefactor, Donald A. Smith, Pauline adopted the stage name Donalda.

On December 30, 1904, Donalda made her debut on stage in Nice, France, singing the role of the title character in Massenet’s Manon. Donalda performed several roles while in Nice, including Jenny (in Chetterton) and Nedda (in I Pagliacci). In 1905 Donalda made her London debut on May 24 at Convent Garden, singing Micaëla in Carmen with Emmy Destinn and Charles Dalmorès, under the direction of André Messager. On June 28, 1905 she sang the part of Ah-Joe in the premiere of Franco Leoni's L'Oracolo. In the 1905 production of Faust at Convent Garden Donalda sang the role of Marguerite, with her future husband, whom she would marry the next year, the French baritone Paul Seveilhac. While in London, she also performed the roles of Juliette, Mimi and Zerlina. In the autumn of 1905 she sang Marguerite and Mimi at the Théâtre de la Monnaie in Brussels, after which, on medical advice, she spent six months resting in the south of France. She returned to Brussels in the spring of 1906 and sang the roles of Manon, Elsa (Lohengrin) and Eva (Die Meistersinger).

After performing in the 1906 season in London, she sang again in Brussels but broke her contract in order to accept an offer from Oscar Hammerstein's Manhattan Opera Company. Before going to New York she made her professional debut in Canada on November 16, 1906, singing with her husband at a recital in the Montreal Arena. She made her New York debut on December 7, 1906 in Faust. That season she sang in numerous shows, including Carmen, Don Giovanni, La Traviata, Lohengrin, and I Pagliacci, along with some of the most prominent singers of the time, such as Nellie Melba, Emma Calvé, Alessandro Bonci, Mario Ancona, Mario Sammarco, and Charles Gilbert. Donalda left Hammerstein after the season, and sang at Convent Garden in the summer of 1907. She made her debut at the Opéra-Comique in Paris on October 19, 1907 singing in Manon with Salignac, Jean Périer, and Lucien Fugère. She then divided her time between London and Paris, making concert tours throughout Central Europe, and to Russia in 1910. During this time Donalda became a renowned performer of oratorio and gave concerts with some of the great performers of the day, including Mischa Elman, I.J. Paderewski, Efrem Zimbalist, Jan Kubelík, and Pablo Casals, and with many distinguished conductors, including Hans Richter and Sir Landon Ronald.

In 1910 she opened the Convent Garden season, replacing Luisa Tetrazzini on short notice in La Traviata with John McCormack and Sammarco. She returned for the 1912 season, singing the Page in Les Huguenots and Nedda in I Pagliacci, with her husband (now a tenor) playing Canio. After being coached by Marie Roze, the famous “Carmen,” Donalda recreated the role in an English version in November 1913. The show was a huge success, and Donalda sang it in French in Nice in February 1914, where she also performed in La Bohème.

When World War I broke out Donalda was in Canada prior to an intended departure for a concert tour of Australia. The tour subsequently cancelled, Donalda decided to stay in Canada, pursuing a career in concerts and the music-hall, and giving benefit appearances for charity and the war effort. In 1915 she created and organized the “Donalda Sunday Afternoon Concerts” in Montreal. That year she also sang in New York and Boston. In 1916 Donalda sang the role of Nedda in I Pagliacci at the Princess Theatre in Montreal. She returned to Paris in 1917. In June 1918 she married the Danish tenor Mischa Léon (born Haurowitz) in Paris, her first marriage having ended in divorce. That year she sang with Léon in Balfe’s Le Talisman in Nice. She sang in her final season at the Convent Garden when it reopened in 1919. On July24, 1919 she sang Concepción in the English premiere of Ravel's L'Heure espagnole, a performance with seventeen curtain calls.

In 1922 Donalda opened a studio in Paris and began to devote herself to teaching. A member of the L'Union Professionnelle des Maîtres du Chant Français, she taught hundreds of pupils before returning to Montreal in 1937, where she opened a studio and continued to teach. A number of Donalda’s pupils would go on to have international careers, notably Clarice Carson, Fernande Chiocchio, Mary Henderson, Eileen Law, Germain Lefebvre and Robert Savoie. She founded the Opera Guild of Montreal in 1941, serving as president and artistic director until 1969, presenting 29 operas over the course of 28 seasons. In 1954 she was granted an honorary Doctorate of Music from McGill University, and in 1967 she was made an Officer of the Order of Canada.

Pauline Donalda died on October 22, 1970.

Carkener, Michael
Person · 1949-

Michael Carkener (b.1949) has lived at 757 Sutil Point Rd., Manson's Landing on Cortes Island since ca. 1978. The house at that address was originally built by the Froud family in 1914. Frederick Froud donated a portion of his land for Manson's Landing Community Hall and St. James Church in the 1920s.

Black, Joanne
Person · 1931-2015

Joanne Black was born April 28, 1931 in Saskatoon. She pursued theological studies at the Vancouver School of Theology and was ordained by BC Conference in 1987. She served charges in Bashaw-Mirror, Alberta (1987-1989); First United Church, Prince Rupert (1989-1995); interim at South Arm United Church, Richmond (1995-1996); and at Sharon United in Langley (1996-1997) before retiring. Jo was a life-long feminist and activist, and fought for Indigenous and LGBTQ rights. Joanne Black died on June 5, 2015.

Redman, Reginald A.
Person · 1898-1987

Reginald Alfred Redman was born in northern England in 1898 and came to Canada as a child. He attended the University of British Columbia and Union College, and was ordained in 1926 by BC Conference of The United Church of Canada. During his ministry, he served the following pastoral charges: Port Alberni (1926-1929); Hatzic (1930-1931); Grace, Vancouver (1932-1936); Chilliwack United (1937-1948); First United, Vancouver (1949-1953); and Marpole, Vancouver (1955-1962). After retirement in 1962, he served as retired supply in Tsawwassen until 1965. He also served as Field Secretary (British Columbia and Alberta) for the Lord's Day Alliance in 1954-1955. Redman died December 12, 1987.

Levit, Mayer
Person · 1911–2000

Mayer Levit was born in July 20, 1911 in Działoszyce, Poland to a religious and poor family. His parents were Bluma (née Mendel) Levit (b. circa 1877, Działoszyce, Poland; d. September 2, 1942, Działoszyce, Poland) and Mordechai Mendel Levit (birth and death dates unknown); the couple had six children.

Mayer worked as a tailor in Kraków, and worked a year in Paris in 1937. In 1938, he returned to Kraków, and to Działoszyce when the war began. When the Germans began deporting Jews in his home community, he and one of his brothers were put on a train and assigned to a small labour camp near Kraków (possibly a satellite of Płaszów). His mother, unable to walk to the train station, was shot on the outskirts of Działoszyce along with many others.

Mayer and his brother were sent to Buchenwald and separated. His tallis and tefillin were taken from him. From Buchenwald he was transferred to the Mittelbau main camp, then to Bergen-Belsen. He was liberated when the British army arrived in the spring of 1945. At the time of his liberation he was given a prayer book and hand towel. None of his siblings survived the Holocaust.

Mayer lived as a displaced person at Bergen-Belsen and Hanover. In 1948 he received a visa to immigrate to Canada. On June 2, 1948, Mayer left Bremerhaven for Halifax, where his ship, the Ernie Pyle, was met by representatives of the Canadian Jewish Congress, who wanted him to proceed to Winnipeg. Instead, Mayer moved to Montreal, where he found work as a tailor.

Mayer married Eva Levit in 1949; the couple had one daughter, Bluma (Judy). In 1960, the family moved to Vancouver, where Mayer eventually opened a tailor shop. He was a member of Chabad Downtown Vancouver. In 1977, he provided testimony to Yad Vashem Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority recording the names and birth and death dates of members of his family who were murdered in Poland during the Holocaust.

Eva Levit died in 1993. Mayer Levit died in April, 2000.

Ellingsen, Elmer
Person · 1913-2002

Elmer Ellingsen (1913-2002) was born in North Vancouver to Sigurd and Gladys Ellingsen. After graduating from high school, he took a short course in business at Sprott Shaw College. In the early 1930s Elmer worked in logging and became a strong supporter of the trade union movement. He also had classical piano training in school, later turning to popular music; he played for many dances and parties until well into his eighties.
Elmer married May Freeman on August 1, 1936. They built a float house and spent the next ten years in the Loughborough Inlet/Phillips Arm area where Elmer worked in his father's logging operations. While there, their children Shirley (1939), Bruce (1940) and Andy (1941) were born. In 1946 they moved to Von Donop Creek, where Elmer formed a logging partnership with Mike Herrewig and Scotty McKenzie. In 1950, he formed a new partnership with Erne Anderson for logging in the Whaletown area, and moved the floathouse to Manson's Landing lagoon. Two years later their floathouse was moved to its present location on Hague Lake.
After traveling from home to various logging operations, Elmer retired from logging. He bought a D8 Caterpillar tractor, backhoe and gravel truck and worked for the next forty years excavating, delivering gravel and moving things. He often worked with BC Hydro and BC Tel on pole installation, repair and maintenance.
Both Elmer and May were very active in community life. They sponsored weekly movie nights through the 1950s and square dancing in the sixties. Elmer was a leading promoter of bringing ferry and hydro service to the island; he helped renovate Manson's Hall in the late 1970s, lobbied for road paving and helped initiate the Cortes Island Firefighters Assoc. in the 1980s. Both were founding members of the Cortes Island Museum and Archives Society.

Olson, Jalmar
Person · 1869-1964

Jalmar Olson (Apr 30, 1869-Feb 29, 1964) was born in Sweden. He emigrated to Canada in 1906 and moved to Cortes in the 1930s. He had a house and garden in Gorge Harbour (509 Whaletown Road). He was a Weather Observer for Transport Canada until 1949, when he moved off-island for health reasons.

Sullivan, Margaret
Person · 1934-2017

Margaret (Marg) Sullivan (1934-2017) was born in Flin Flon, Manitoba. She married Clarence “Sully” Sullivan in 1955, and they moved to Cortes Island in the early 1980s, taking an active part in community affairs. Marg was a stained-glass artist, and she created the windows for St. Saviour-By-The-Sea Church overlooking Cortes Bay. Each personalized window commemorates a long-time Cortes resident and there is a fascinating story behind the creation of each window. Marg also custom designed the circular stained glass window above the entrance door of St. Michael’s Catholic Church in the Klahoose village of Tork in Squirrel Cove. This window is imbued with symbolism meaningful to the Klahoose First Nation and tells a story all its own. The Band Administrator in 1998 arranged for Marg to meet with Klahoose elders and artists to consider design elements the Band wished to have her incorporate in the window. She made research trips to the First Nations Museum at Alert Bay and to the Klahoose traditional lands in Toba Inlet before designing the window. Marg’s personal stories about each of these windows were recorded for preservation in the Museum’s Archives at a tea in 2015.

Newsham, Peggy
Person · 1907-1999

Peggy Newsham (1907-1999) was born in Belfast, Ireland. At the age of 16, she emigrated to Vancouver, Canada. In 1937, Peggy met Doll (Jeffery) Hansen and together they traveled on the Union Steamship to Cortes Island. She worked for Alice Robertson at Burnside in Whaletown, helping with the gardening, livestock and household chores. Peggy moved to Manson's Landing in the late 1960s, where she was active in the Community Club and took part in many social activities. She was crowned "Queen of Cortes" by acclamation at Cortes Day in 1979. There is a memorial to Peggy in the garden of the Cortes Island Museum.

Thompson, James
Person · 1858-1940

James Thompson (1858-1940) came to Lulu Island in 1878 from Co. Derry, Ireland via Ontario. Mr. Thompson worked as a farmhand and later as manager of the Milligan farm before purchasing and building his own farm in 1896. He married Esther Abercrombie in 1893 and together they had seven children: Elizabeth Jane (McKay), Esther Letitia (Hoffman), John James, Jessie Mildred (Woods), David William, Mary Leona (Paxton) and Violet Beatrice (Pitman). Mr. Thompson served as a school trustee from 1908 to 1915 and 1921 to 1922. He also served as a member of the Lulu Island West Dyking Commission from 1915 to 1934 and a chairman of the Board of Commissioners from 1915 to 1925. Esther Thompson died on May 21, 1936 at age 71, and James Thompson died on November 3, 1940 at age 83

Topping, William E.
Person · 1928 - 2017

William, E. Topping, Bill, was a Vancouver resident born in 1928 who taught at Cambie School and Richmond High School before serving as Vice-Principal at Garden City and Dixon Elementary Schools. In 1996 he retired from McNair High School which, at one time, had the largest number of students anywhere in the province taking Geography. Mr. Topping taught mainly Geography throughout his career. He was a photo editor for several books of British Columbia history and wrote and published 18 books of postal history. He edited a newsletter devoted to postal history. He was member of the Richmond Retired Teachers Association and in 2008 was chair of the Scholarship Fund Committee. He died October 2017.

Gilker, Gerry
Person

Jack Lowe, Geraldine (Dody) Wray and Gerry Gilker grew up in Richmond in the 1930s and 1940s and belonged to families involved in the horse racing industry. With the aim of documenting the industry, the three determined to collect photographs and stories from others connected to Richmond’s race tracks and horse racing history. Between 1998 and 2001, they put together a collection of memoirs and photographs related to the history of thoroughbred racing in Richmond. Photographs were donated to the Archives on a copy loan basis; copy prints and negatives were made, and the originals returned to donors. With the help of the City of Richmond Archives and the Friends of the Richmond Archives, a selection of these were compiled and published as a book titled “Whispers From The Shedrows.”

Orr, Oscar
Person · 1892-1992

James Oscar Fitzalan Harley McConnell Orr was born July 27, 1892, on the Red Pheasant Cree Reserve, which is south of North Battleford in Saskatchewan. He was the first son and fifth child born to Oscar Fitzallan Orr and Alvretta McConnell. At 10 years old, Oscar ran away for 3 years and joined the circus and rode the rails down to Galveston, Texas. In 1908 he joined his mother in Vancouver and would become a lifelong resident of the city.

In 1914 Oscar married Marjorie McMillan with whom he had two sons, Oscar Jr. and Alexander. When war broke out Oscar enlisted in the Royal Canadian Navy but due to seasickness he was discharged. However shortly after he joined Tobin's Tigers, the 29th Battalion based out of Vancouver. In September 1915 The Battalion went to Belgium and on July 16, 1916, Oscar was hit by shrapnel and evacuated from Ypres, France, to England. During this time he spent time at the King Edward VII Hospital in London and also at the homes of the Duke of Norfolk and Mrs. Margaret Greville, the richest woman in England at the time. He had tea with King George V and Queen Mary at the palace.

In October 1916 he returned to Canada and was called to the bar in November. What followed was an extensive career in law, becoming Vancouver's City Magistrate and serving on the Canadian War Crimes Commission in Japan in 1946. In 1945 Oscar became a King's Counsel and the next year was made a member of the British Empire. He retired in 1962, and Vancouver made him a Freeman of the City and Oscar served on the Oakalla Prison parole board for many years. In 1988, he became the second person to receive the Law Society Begbie Award from the Law Society of British Columbia and in 1990, he became a member of the Order of British Columbia.

Oscar was very interested in history, keeping an extensive library of historical documents and his family history. He lived until he was 101, and died November 1, 1992.

Sansom, George Bailey, Sir
Person · 1883-1965

Sir George Bailey Sansom was a diplomatist and Japanese scholar, was born in London on 28 November 1883, the only son of George William Morgan Sansom, naval architect, of Little Thurrock, Essex, and his wife, Mary Ann Bailey, from Yorkshire. He was educated at Palmer's School, Grays, and the lycée Malherbe, Caen, and later attended the universities of Giessen and Marburg. He passed a competitive examination for the British consular service in September 1903 and was attached to the British legation in Tokyo to study the Japanese language. He served as private secretary to Sir Claude Macdonald, ambassador to Japan, from 1905 to 1912, and also in consulates around Japan. In these posts, he acquired great proficiency in the Japanese language, including local dialects. In 1915 he was in London on home leave and, being unfit for military service, was lent by the Foreign Office first to the Admiralty and then to the War Office for political intelligence work, which took him to Archangel.

Sansom worked as secretary to the ambassador, Sir Charles Eliot, a post in which he made the acquaintance of many Japanese leaders and scholars. Eliot, for whom he had unbounded admiration, encouraged him to devote the spare time which was available to him in the relatively relaxed pace of official life to the study of Japan, her language, culture, and history. In 1928 he published his first work, An Historical Grammar of Japanese, a pioneer study. Already regarded as an authority on the early history of Japan, he published in 1931 Japan: a Short Cultural History, which was based on primary materials in Japanese and added a new dimension to the English-language literature on the subject. While he was dissatisfied with aspects of the work and wanted to revise it, it was reprinted as it stood in 1936 and on countless occasions thereafter. It became the standard and most reliable text for the university courses on the subject which were growing up in the United States and elsewhere. Sansom then edited the monograph Japanese Buddhism (1935) which Eliot had left incomplete at the time of his death in 1931 and added a chapter of his own. His scholarship was recognized when, during leave in 1935, he spent half a year in New York, lecturing at Columbia University.

From the 1920s Sansom was responsible for the commercial work of the embassy. He was appointed commercial secretary in September 1923 and then commercial counsellor in January 1930. In this capacity he travelled to the Philippines in 1932 and then to India in the autumn of 1933, where he played an important negotiating role in resolving the difficult Indo-Japanese cotton dispute in a dual capacity as representative of both the Indian and British governments. He was made a KCMG in June 1935, having been appointed CMG in January 1926.

From 1947 to 1953 Sansom was professor of Japanese studies at Columbia University and from 1949 to 1953 he was the first director of its East Asian Institute. It was during this period that he wrote The Western World and Japan: a Study in the Interaction of European and Asian Cultures (1950), in which he emphasized the influence of Western thought as it reached Japan down the centuries. He was able to make another academic visit to Japan in 1950 and to publish the seminal lectures he gave on that occasion under the title Japan in World History (1951). In 1955 he decided on health grounds to move to California, where he was given an honorary ‘consultant professorship’ at Stanford University. There he spent much of the last ten years of his life, freed from routine work, working on his three-volume History of Japan (1958–64). Considering the exacting standards that he set for himself, it was a marvellous publication, but the strains of age and illness affected the final volume. He had built up over half a century a range of intellectual contacts in Japan unusual for a diplomatist; and he was able to plough into his writing the richness of Japanese material towards which he was guided by a network of academic friends. He became an honorary fellow of the Japanese Academy in 1951.

Although Sansom's official career was distinguished in its own right, it is as an interpreter of Japan that he will be remembered. His writings, originating in linguistic and Buddhist studies, gradually moved away from cultural history and in later works tended towards social and political history. He was the bridge between Japanese scholars who were anxious to have their country understood abroad and a western readership who appreciated the style and wit of his writing.

Lunsford, Stephen C.
Person

Born in Florida, Stephen Lunsford emigrated to British Columbia in 1977, after attending graduate school at Ohio State University. He taught both at University of British Columbia and Simon Fraser University for a few years, before becoming a full time rare book and manuscript dealer, and an appraiser of the same. He has issued catalogues offering a wide variety of original manuscripts, photographs, printed items, and artwork. He specialized in unearthing hitherto unknown early works printed in Western Canada, especially indigenous language materials. For many years, he worked to discover and describe the earliest items printed in British Columbia, as well as the other western Provinces, Yukon, and Alaska. He amassed, in large part, the ground-breaking collection of BC Colonial imprints of John Keenlyside, as well as his own smaller collection of variants not found in the Keenlyside collection. Results of two of his bibliographical researches can be found in Amphora, the journal of the Alcuin Society: “Robert Mathison Jr’s Tasty Printing,” an account of Vancouver’s first job printer, in Special Issue of Amphora No. 150, November 2008, and “Pressing the Word into the Wilderness,” an overview of mission printing on the Northwest Coast. Amphora No. 154, Vancouver, 2010.

Bennett, William
Person

William Bennett was a former leader of the B.C. Communists.

Schmitz, Yvonne
Person

Yvonne Schmitz was a correspondent and personal friend of Claire Culhane's from the 1970's until Culhane's passing in 1996.

Kremer, Roberta
Person

Writer, curator, educator. Dr. Roberta S. Kremer earned a Doctorate of Philosophy in Art Education and Museum Studies from the University of British Columbia, a Master of Arts in Art Education from the University of Minnesota, and a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Fine Arts from the University of Wisconsin. Dr. Kremer served as the Acting Curator of Education and Public Programs at the Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia from 2007-2008 and served as the Executive Director of the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre from 1996-2006. Dr. Kremer has curated over eleven exhibitions including Ravensbrück: Forgotten Women of the Holocaust and Faces of Loss. Several of these exhibits are still traveling. She also edited the full-length study, Memory and Mastery: Primo Levi as Writer and Witness (State University of New York Press, 2001) and Broken Threads (Berg Publishing, 2007). Dr. Kremer teaches part-time in the Anthropology Department of the University of British Columbia (Museum Studies) and in the Department of Central, Eastern and Northern European Studies (Holocaust Literature).

Boe-Fishman, Amalia
Person · 1939–

Amalia Boe-Fishman was born in Leeuwarden, the Netherlands, in 1939 to Johanna (née de Leeuw) (1908–1992) and Arnold van Kreveld (1909–1992). The van Kreveld family were a secular Jewish family well integrated into life in the province of Friesland in the Netherlands prior to the Second World War. Amalia survived the Holocaust in hiding at the home of a colleague of her father’s named Jan Spiekhout, a member of the Dutch resistance. Amalia’s parents and older brother (David, born 1937) were separated and the family hid in different places during the war. A second brother (Jan, named after Jan Spiekhout) was born during the war, in November 1944. After the war, the family rented a house on the same street in Leeuwarden where they had lived before the war. Amalia attended summer camp hosted by the Humanistich Verbond Ethical Society in 1947. She remained close to the Spiekhouts throughout her life.

Amalia met her ex-husband, a Canadian Jew, while in Israel at age 21; they moved to Canada in 1962 after marrying in Holland that same year. The couple had three children. They divorced in 1983. Amalia remarried in 1994 to Kristen Boe.

In 1999, Amalia visited the Netherlands and her foster brother, Simon Spiekhout, who was her baby brother while she lived in hiding. Jan Spiekhout and his parents, Durk and Froukje Spiekhout, were recognized as Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem’s Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority in 2008 for their role in sheltering Amalia during the war. Amalia and her children attended the ceremony honouring the Spiekhouts in The Hague in 2009.

Amalia lives in Vancouver and is an active Holocaust survivor speaker.

Fleming, Thomas Kingston
Person · 1926-2015

Thomas Kingston Fleming was born on March 2nd 1926 in Sardis, British Columbia to Philip and Marjorie Fleming. He had two brothers, Frank and Peter Fleming. He attended Victoria College and University of British Columbia, where he earned his degree in Commerce. Fleming was an entrepreneur, founder of Vintage Consultants, creator of the Kaatza Foundation, and had a long career with Balfour Forest Products. He was a trained chartered accountant, a supporter of education, and an amateur historian of British Columbia, the Pacific Northwest, and Canada.

Nudelman, Edward
Person

Edward Nudelman is a Seattle-based rare books dealer. Since 1980 his company, Nudelman Rare Books, has sold out-of-print rare books with a focus on English and American literature, illustrated 19th and 20th century books, and the art and poetry of the Victorian and Pre-Raphaelite periods. He has been a member of the Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America since 1983.

In addition to his work as a bookseller, Nudelman is also a poet. His first poetry collection ("What Looks Like An Elephant") was published in 2011.

Nudelman studied chemistry and zoology at the University of Washington. He worked as a cancer research scientist until his retirement in 2012.