Fazans

Family Tree

Allan Ernest Fazan 1886 – 1947 and Leo Fazan 1886 - 1967

The Fazans were from London, England. Their father had done well in the meat business. He was butcher to the Queen. He wanted Allan to follow him in the business. Allan and Leo who were twins had had good educations in England and in Europe. Leo had spent two years with a tutor in France. He was fluent in French and years later tutored Jennie Smith in French. Elsie Gardner remembers that he often quoted Shakespeare. He was trained as a master finishing carpenter. Allan and Leo came out from England about 1906. They came up the lake by steamer from Penticton and landed at Okanagan Centre where they were met by the George and Kathleen Mccarthy. They fixed up an old chicken house on the Mccarthy property and for a while lived there. Then they began farming, a mystifying experience for London boys. They got property on Dry Valley Rd in the Glenmore area, but it was too dry for the alfalfa they tried to grow, and so after a few more moves they eventually ended up in Joe Rich on the 80 acre property just down the creek from the Weddell’s home. Their first cabin was up Mission Creek above High Lonesome Ranch and was made from Jack Pine logs stuck in the ground vertically with mud between them and an earth floor. The remains of this cabin are now almost gone except for a few timbers and a rusted old sheet metal stove.

Allan went off to work as a high rigger at the coast in order to earn money while Leo stayed in Joe Rich. Eventually, Allan, Leo and their older brother Gordon, who had joined them by then, bought lumber from John Findlay and built a large house close to Joe Rich Creek.

The Mccarthys also had property in Joe Rich near the Mission Creek Bridge.

When World War I began in 1914, Allan and his older brother Gordon both joined the army. At first, Allan was in the Rocky Mountain Rangers, but was later moved to another unit. He and Gordon were both sent to Europe where Gordon died in 1917 after being shot in the throat. Allan returned to Joe Rich. Leo had the property up Mission Creek, but after Gordon died, he gave up that property and moved onto the Joe Rich Creek property with Allan.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1920 Leo Fazan

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1923 Cyril Weddell & Leo Fazan

Allan continued to work away from home, and got a job in a fruit cannery in Penticton. There he met Florence Lynch (1911 - ) or Flossy as she was called, who had also come from London just a few years before with her family. She had not wanted to leave England where she already had a boyfriend, but had been persuaded to come with the rest of the family. Although she was 25 years younger than Allan, they fell in love and in 1929, decided to marry. When Leo heard about this he was not happy. He and Florence never became close. After their marriage, Allan and Florence moved into the Joe Rich house and Allan and Leo built a cabin for Leo on the hill behind the Weddell’s house.

For a while, Allan worked in the cannery in Kelowna.

Terry, their first son was born to Allan and Florence the year after their marriage. He was followed by Eric, Brian (1934 -2001), Colin, Bruce, Eileen and Sylvia. The family was very musical. Florence composed music which she sang and played on the banjo. Eric sang too. Collin and Bruce played the guitar and Bruce seemed to be able to play anything he could get his hands on. Florence (Flossie) wrote the popular Kelowna ditty, “Land of the Ogopogo”.

Florence arrived in Joe Rich after Mary (Shanks) Weddell was well established. Mary Weddell taught her how to bake bread. For years, they both raised their families beside each other. Neither had extra cash and life was simple. One of the great joys was the Friday night dance at the schoolhouse. Flossy always wanted to look her best, but couldn’t afford new clothes. To get around this problem, she frequently ripped out her wool sweater and knitted it up in a new style to be ready for the dance. She must have been a great knitter.

In 1939, Terry became ill with a severe Streptococcal throat infection and nearly died. Florence had already been thinking about moving the family into Kelowna and this illness precipitated the move. For a while, the family home was rented or at times stood empty until in the early 1940s, Leo moved out of his cabin and down the hill to the larger house. His cabin was later moved north closer to the house. Water was obtained from springs behind the houses or pumped up from Joe Rich Creek. Leo kept two milk cows, a few horses and no wife. He occasionally did carpentry work.

During World War II, Allan again enlisted. This time as a guard in a prisoner of war camp in the Kananaskis area near Calgary. He returned from the war, and two years later on October 5, 1947, at the age of 61, he was killed when a hit-and-run driver struck him on Pandosy Street.

As Allan and Florence’s children grew up, they frequently came back to Joe Rich and stayed with Leo. Although he often seemed gruff and grumpy, he was good hearted and kind to them. He was “Uncle Leo” to all the children including the Weddells. Often with one of his friends, Terry would get a ride up to Joe Rich to visit Leo. They frequently couldn’t come with Duncan Stewart until the pub was closed and Duncan was forced to drive home. It would be the middle of the night and the boys would look at Leo’s house to see if the coal oil lamp was still on and Leo was reading as he so often did. If it was out, they were in trouble. Terry remembers waking Leo in the middle of the night, receiving a gruff response, but being invited in to go upstairs and get some sleep.

Leo sometimes did a little bit of horse logging. On one occasion, he was skidding out a log behind his horse when the log rolled pinning one of his legs below it. He held the reins and was able to stop the horse. Fortunately, his nephew and another boy soon arrived and were able to get help. The horse was disconnected and with the help of a cant hook the log was rolled off his badly bruised leg.

Leo lived on in the house until August 15, 1967 when he died of prostate cancer at the age of 80. The property was sold to Jim Grindley, and the house was eventually used for chickens. It was never cleaned or repaired and fell into terrible shape. Finally, it was burned down as a fire practice for the Joe Rich Fire Department.

Terry Fazan

Terry spent his childhood in Joe Rich and attended the Joe Rich School with the Weddells and Philpotts. When the family moved down to Kelowna, he was about 11 and had had four years at the Joe Rich School. He continued to visit Joe Rich often staying weekends and spent several summers here. Sometimes, he rode his bicycle up the gravel road to Joe Rich before the relatively straight and paved Highway 33 existed. The ride took 4 hours up and about 1 ½ hrs down. It was a long hot ride and Terry remembers stopping to rest under the trees and get a drink where the little bridge used to cross Eight Mile Creek just below Walker’s irrigation dam. Sometimes, he was able to hitch a ride up to Joe Rich on either Weddell’s or Stewart’s truck after they had taken lettuce or turnips down to Kelowna. Terry’s mother, Florence concerned with the scrapping between Eric and Terry, sometimes sent Terry to Leo to keep peace in the house. As a result, Terry saw as much of his uncle Leo as he did of his father who was away in the army for several years. Terry thinks that he would never have gotten through high school French without his father’s help.

Terry married Marie Newcombe and they had Adrienne in 1953 followed by Judy, Terry, Karen, Brian, Brenda, Corrine, and Diane.

In 1963, he and the family moved back to Joe Rich. On the foundation of Leo’s cabin up the hill from the old house, they built their new home and raised the family there. For 35 years, Terry drove a truck for Canadian Freightways and the several other companies which subsequently bought it out. At the end of his career, Terry drove large Western Star Freight trucks for Columbia Driveway and delivered these all over North America.

Terry’s daughter, Adrienne married Bob Harasin and they built the large lovely house in Joe Rich in which the Egans now live. Adrienne is herself an accomplished carpenter. She and Bob have a son, Bob. They have now divorced and moved away from Joe Rich.

Terry and Marie’s son, Terry Fazan junior has recently moved back to Joe Rich and lives in the mobile home belonging to the Weddells on the old Mack property on the north side of the highway past Weddell’s home.

 

Findlays

John Findlay came from Ontario. He owned the property now known as the Serwa property. He seems to have acquired 160 acres on the south side of Mission Creek (DL4091) about 1910. In 1929, he acquired a second Crown Grant, (DL 3753) on the north side of the creek which added another 160 acres to his holding. On his first quarter section, he built a saw mill and then a fine large two-storey house which was moved to the Silver Lake Fish Camp where it burned down in the fires of the summer of 2003. His mill was apparently a masterpiece of hand-made often wooden equipment. He was a very hard worker and a very handy man. He remained single, but for several years his parents lived with him and his sister, Margaret. He and Martin Band built many of the Joe Rich homes and buildings including not only the log and lumber work, but also the stone work.

John Findlay also brought water to his property by digging a very long ditch from Joe Rich Creek on Black’s property (now Dion’s) along the edge of the hills on the south west side of Joe Rich Valley. This was all done with a horse and scoop and was not financed by the government. It was an impressive piece of work, but apparently was never very functional.

Findlay, though a bachelor, was very active in the community. He helped build the schoolhouse, was a big contributor to the school and for a time was the school board secretary. He was also generous with his fine home. When the Philpott home burned down in 1929, he had the Philpott family stay with him while he and others helped build them a new home. Mary Weddell’s diary indicates that he was a frequent visitor to the Weddell family. He was a busy and well-liked man.

John Findlay’s sister, Margaret married Frank Nicolas. Mary Shanks who became Mrs. Cyril Weddell lived with the Nicholases during the year she taught at the Joe Rich School, and as a result became a close friend of Mrs. Nicolas.

Findlay had an old flatbed truck with which he hauled lumber. In 1949, he had injured his leg and was wearing a cast. He was used to figuring things out for himself and so took his own cast off and was driving to town past the pond below Black Mountain on the Joe Rich gravel road. He may have stressed his leg and passed out. No one knows, but in any case, at the bad corner beside the pond his truck rolled over. Its wooden cab collapsed. He was crushed and died on June 1, 1946 at the age of 69. 15

Findlay’s mill was left. When Jack Serwa and Harry Gibbons bought the property in 1946, Gibbons tried to get it working. He couldn’t figure it out and so ended up pushing it into a pile and setting fire to it. Later, Mr. Serwa operated a small mill on the property in the late 1940s. For a while, the Serwas considered moving to Joe Rich to live on the property, but Mrs. Serwa had grown up in a very small prairie town and had no desire to return to rural living. Various people lived on the property. Amongst them were horse loggers, Albert and Slim Coghill. Later, Peter Griffith lived in the house. He was a skilled log house builder and in 1977, built the house for the Hanns in which the Sinclairs now live.

For a while, hippies lived in the old Findlay home. When a couple of them decided to get married, they arranged to have the ceremony in one of the meadows. Gert Weddell was invited with her mother-in-law, Mary and the children. One of the couple’s parents was a Toronto doctor who also came for the wedding. He was not used to the life style his daughter had adopted. He had not been told that a crow lived in the house and was a little upset to find that his good clothes for the wedding had been splotched when the crow found them a convenient place to relieve himself. Amongst the hippies was a young woman with a new baby. During the festivities, she undid her top and nursed the baby for all to see. The doctor remarked to Gert, “I guess that’s what they mean when they say, ‘Letting it all hang out’”. For the wedding, the bridesmaid wore a blouse made from a gunny sack, and completed her ensemble with grey socks and boots.

On a winter day sometime later, Pat Russell contacted Weddells to report that smoke was coming out of the Findlay house. The Weddells and Russells quickly drove over and found that the hippies had been heating water for a sauna and had left the house with the water still heating. The heat got too much and the house caught fire. Weddells and Russells found a bucket and with snow managed to extinguish the fire, but not before the windows broke from the heat.