Aitkens

Marcia Josephine Aitkens was born in her family’s Cadder Avenue home in Kelowna. Dr. Shepherd was her uncle. He owned property and had built a cabin on Mission Creek just upstream from Ron Cherry’s present property sometime around 1920. During her childhood Marcia visited the cabin often and learned to love the outdoors there. When she had finished her high school in Kelowna, she took nursing training at the coast and later went on to post-graduate degrees. When World War II began, she joined up as a nurse and travelled with the army. After the war, she entered the academic side of nursing and held many important positions as head of schools of nursing both in Canada and the United States. She was bright, well-educated and a clear thinker who wasn’t afraid to speak her mind. She was active in the Girl Guide Movement and continued to enjoy the out of doors.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1918 Marcia when she began visiting Shepherd's cabin

When she finally retired, Marcia acquired her uncle’s cabin which her sister, Mrs. Sager had owned. Dr. Shepherd’s original cabin had washed down Mission Creek in a flood that occurred in 1929 and had been rebuilt between 1932 and 1934. She built an additional part onto the cabin in 1970 and also moved a small A frame onto the property which she had used for a while on Serwa’s property. She eventually gave this to the Lindahl’s who have rehabilitated it as a cabin for their grandsons.

During her war years, Marcia had learned to smoke and drink. As she aged, her mind remained perfectly clear, but her body deteriorated to skin and bones. Eventually, she could only get around when she was pushed in a wheel chair. She began giving her houseful of treasures away and moved into a nursing home where she died about a year later. Just before her death, her then unoccupied cabin partially burned down and the property was sold. In her will, she left a large amount of money to charities. Her Joe Rich neighbours enjoyed her straightforward approach and broad knowledge and miss her.

 

Baillies

John and Gizel Baillie and their children lived in the Mack house on the northeast side of Highway 33 before the Macks had the house. Their children were Hugh born in 1906, George born in 1909 and James born in 1913. They were three of the students in the first class of Joe Rich School in 1922.

John Baillie had trained as a clergyman in England. He conducted the Joe Rich school house church from 1923 to 1927 when the family moved away from Joe Rich.

 

Baileys

Mel Bailey and his family (Their name was confusing because of the other Baillie family already in the valley, but the two names were spelt differently) lived on and owned the Brewer property. The property had been taken as a Crown Grant by Chris Schram in 1912, sold to Mabel Bright and her son, Garvin after Schram’s death in 1916 and then sold to Baileys. We do not know whether the Brights or the Baileys built the present Brewer house and barn. They were probably built by John Findlay and Martin Band.

The Bailey children were Harold born about 1917, Verna May born about 1919, Mary born in 1924 and Jack born in 1927. They attended the Joe Rich School.5 Harold married Miss Vanidour, one of the schoolteachers.

 

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.

 

Benings

The Bening family lived for a while in a cabin on the Black’s property. Mr. Bening who was Swiss and sometimes referred to as Herr Bening, came to Canada in 1912 and at first worked as caretaker for Mrs. Mabel Bright and her family who had a lovely home in the Belgo. Later, he had a thirty mile trapline which stretched from Big White to Little White. The Bening children were Dorothy, born in 1922 and Elsie, born in 1924. They attended the Joe Rich School in 1929. The family spent the summers in Joe Rich so that Mr. Bening could get home at night from his trap line. They did this until Elsie was 16.

In 1926, their friends, the Millers lost their Kelowna home to fire. The Millers moved up to Joe Rich and stayed with the Benings. Donald and Neva Miller attended the Joe Rich School from Christmas to spring time.

The Bening girls were good friends with Christine Mack and Elsie has fond memories of the Philpott twins. They played cards with Leo Fazan at the Macks and on one occasion Leo tipped his chair back and went right through the window behind him.

Elsie remembers great fishing in the Joe Rich Creek and even caught 8 to 12 inch trout in the V – shaped irrigation troughs in the lettuce fields and then kept the fish alive in the horse trough!

She remembers having an alarm clock that Cecil Philpott really wanted – she thinks he maybe needing it to get up for work – and she traded it for a tobacco can of fish hooks!!

At the Belgo home they had a horse named ‘Flossie’ that the girls thought they had bought for 5 pennies (all they had), but actually Mr. B. had bought it for $5. Flossie never came up to Joe Rich, but she remembers being very excited when they heard that Allan Fazan was bringing Flossie up to Joe Rich. Much disappointment when they realized it was his wife who was called Flossie.

Elsie married Mr. Gardner.

Mr. Bening died on Abdication Day, 1936 at the age of 56. He was up at his trap line with Harry Band. He had a trapper’s cabin at the end of Three Forks Road across Mission Creek. It seems he became ill while on the line and made his way to the cabin dropping his gun on the floor and falling into bed. Harry Band came in soon after and thought he was sleeping, but he had passed away.

 

Blacks

(see Joe Rich's Oldest Buildings, An Interview with Ellen (Black) Mark & Dions)

Blacks were related to the Bands. They came to Joe Rich about 1908 at almost the same time as the Fazans, before the Bands. William (Billy) Black was a carpenter who often worked outside Joe Rich. He doesn’t seem to have built as much in Joe Rich as did Findlay and Band, but his old barn still stands on Dion’s property as a memorial of his skills as a builder.

His sister was Margaret (Black) Band. His wife, Roberta who was usually called Bertha or Bethie was a Band before their marriage, and was the sister of Martin Band. Thus the two families were a Black brother and sister married to a Band sister and brother. The Blacks had three children: Ellen born in 1914, Doug born in 1917 and Jean, who became Jean Walsh and is still living in Kelowna.

Blacks owned the property now owned by the Dions and Don Friesen. In the 1930, John Findlay built a ditch from Joe Rich Creek to his property for irrigation. It apparently never worked well, because it ran through an area of shale near the end and this allowed the water to seep out.

The Weddell children walked across the Black Family property to get to school.

Ellen and Doug Black were two of the first Joe Rich School students in 1922. In later years, Doug married Marie and the couple lived in the house which later became the Dion’s. While Doug was on the family property he grew good turnips and potatoes on the part of the property down near Mission Creek where Norm Fast later lived. At the same time he was logging. Ellen married Art Mark.

 

Bubars

Abe Bubar and his wife had two sons, Hayden and Bud.

Bud and his mother lived in the Brewer house. When Pat Weddell came home to her father’s funeral she met Bud and they were married. Bud was a logger and a good friend of Jim Weddell. He logged for Justin Mccarthy from the Buck Creek camp shortly after he and Pat were married. During that time, their son, Cyril was born in 1948. They lived in the camp near what is now Three Forks Road.

Pat and Bud divorced after two years. Pat worked cooking in logging camps and later returned to her nursing. She worked many years at the Kelowna General Hospital.

Cyril never knew his father well, because he died of a brain tumour when Cyril was 7. Cyril had a good sense of belonging in Joe Rich where he grew up surrounded by so many relatives and close friends. He began school in Joe Rich School in 1952 when he was just 5 years old. His presence was needed at the school in order to have enough students to keep the school open. He remembers his first school day. The teacher, Mr. Cornelson asked him his name and Cyril told him it was Cyril. Mr. Cornelson then asked what his family name was. The pressure of the first day of school and this direct questioning was too much. He couldn’t remember his family name. Edithe Philpott, who was two years older, was sitting close by. She whispered in his ear, “Say ‘Chocolate Bar’”. Cyril blurted out, “Chocolate Bar” and the teacher who thought he was trying to be smart was not amused. School was not off to a good start.

Hayden Bubar went to World War II and brought back Ethel, his Scottish war bride. They lived in the Mack house on the northeast side of Highway 33 on the Weddell’s property.

Pat (Weddell) Bubar bought the Band Property with Dave Weddell in 1970. Her son, Cyril moved a house up from town to the Mission Creek side of Greystoke Road on the property. He and his wife, Alexandra Greer (Emsley) Bubar now live in the house. Cyril works for Ken Hardy logging with his uncle, Dave Weddell. Alex is currently taking further training in fine arts.