HISTORY: Families and People: A - B | BANDS

Martin Band, his wife Margaret Elizabeth (Black) and their family came to Joe Rich Valley soon after World War I. Martin, a Scotsman was stone mason and builder. He had gone to South Africa during the Boer War and had worked there as an engineer building bridges. Then he had immigrated to Ontario where he had met Margaret Black. They had been married in the Vernon District on March 10, 1908. They settled on the north side of the present highway where Dave Weddell now lives. On the way to their property, they had to ford Mission Creek with a wagon. They were helped by the Fazan brothers on horses, but in spite of this some of their possessions were washed down the creek.

Martin built the present log house in 1917. It was built with fire killed cedar logs. Margaret Band, Lettie Band’s mother-in-law later told Lettie that when the family first moved into their new house the windows weren’t even completed and it was already cold. The family had canaries and in the morning the water in their birdcage would be frozen. In spite of this, the birds would be singing. Mrs. Band thought they were encouraging her to be happy even if the circumstances were uncomfortable. In 1925, Martin Band built a barn near the house for his team of horses.

Martin often worked with John Findlay or Billy Black and together they built several of the buildings around Joe Rich some of which are still standing (e.g. Dunworkin’).

Margaret (Weddell) Hine remembers that when she was a little girl, Mrs. Band used to baby-sit for them sometimes. On one occasion, she told Margaret that her ears were burning and which meant someone was talking about her. She said that if you wet your finger in your mouth and rub it on your ear, the person who is talking about you will bite their tongue and stop talking. Sometime later, Margaret was talking to a school friend about Mrs. Band and she bit her tongue. Margaret was convinced that Mrs. Band had been right and had made her bite her tongue.

The Bands were related to the Blacks. Mrs. Band was Mr. Black’s sister, and Mr. Band was Mrs. Black’s brother.

The Band children were: Alice Margaret born in 1909, Bob born in 1911, Harry born in 1916 and Alex born in 1919. Alice, Bob and Harry were students in the Joe Rich School when it opened in 1922. Alex started in the school in 1927. Years later, Harry told his wife, Lettie many stories about the Band boy’s growing up years. He said that deer used to come down into Dunc Stewart’s lettuce field at night. Once, the boys went up to Dunc’s place with a flashlight to chase them off and decided to try to catch one of them. It came after them and they killed it with a knife. Lettie never thought the story was true, but years later, she heard it from another source and now wonders if it really was true. She was also told that Alex spit on a horse and when he turned around to leave, the horse bit him on the back. She heard stories of attaching meat to an electric fence in order to shock a cat.

On January 21, 1927, Alice married Camille T. Gilkin when she was 17 and left Joe Rich. Later, she married Mr. Parkin.

Bob fell in love with Helen Humphreys who was then the teacher at the Joe Rich School during the two years from 1937 to 1939 when she taught here. He then moved to Ontario and sent for her. They were married there and did not return to Joe Rich.

Harry joined up in World War II and went to Britain where, in 1945, he met and married Lettie Band, a Scottish girl from Dundee. They returned to Joe Rich in 1946 and moved into Leo Fazan’s cabin where they lived for two years. Margaret Band, Harry’s mother was still alive and living in the family home. Martin had died of a stroke on July 8, 1929 at the age of 54. For nearly twenty years, Margaret Band lived here as a widow. Perhaps understandably, she became a little cantankerous. Dave and Margaret Weddell remember stopping to pick and eat some berries as they passed the Band property. Margaret came out and shouted at them so they moved on.

When Lettie became pregnant, she and Harry moved into Rutland. While they were living there Mrs. Band also died of a stroke on July 13, 1947 at the age of 63. In 1950, she and Harry with Martin, their first child who was just starting to walk, moved back to Joe Rich to live in the family home. Harry was logging and had an 80 acre woodlot behind Fazan’s property. Lettie remembers that life in Joe Rich was very quite then. The highway didn’t go through yet and Joe Rich was a dead end destination for most people. They stayed here until 1952 when Lettie was pregnant with Susan. They then returned permanently to live in Kelowna and left the family home still furnished, but unoccupied.

A few years later, a group of hippies moved into the house. They even took down a wall and used it for firewood and shot a hole in an old picture of Margaret. Around the same time, Harry and Lettie had made arrangements for Howard Demitor to put a new roof on the old house. The hippies were destroying the place and to get rid of them, he put coal oil in the well. The hippies then had to carry their water from Joe Rich Creek and eventually gave up and left, but Lettie was annoyed with Howard. At one stage, Lettie remembers that a cow was somehow gotten up onto the second floor of the house and appeared very strange looking out one of the windows. When it was finally removed, it was thin and sick because it had been up there several days. Jim Weddell vaguely remembers having had something to do with getting the cow up there. Perhaps a practical joke on all but the cow.

In 1969, Dave Weddell began renting the house and property from Alice (Band) Parkin, and in 1970, he and Pat (Weddell) Bubar purchased the 96 acre property from her. Dave Weddell and his wife, Donna (Ablett) Weddell still live in the house today. Two acres of the property were taken by the Department of Highways when the highway was straightened and widened in 1968. The property extends north along Dion Road and then turns north east and extends to Mission Creek. Cyril Bubar, Pat’s son has moved a house onto the property on the creek side of Greystoke Road and now lives there with his wife Alex (Emsley) Bubar.

Alex Band built the house on the flats just southeast of Mission Creek where Peggy Mayer now lives. He married Olive. She and her sister, Marjorie had worked for the Weddells. Alex and Olive had a daughter, May while they were living in the house. Eventually, they sold the house to Bucklands and moved to town.