The theme for this month's Genealogy Blog Party is "Spring Fever"!
Check out the rest of the Genealogy Blog Party here.
To me, 'spring fever' in Vancouver, BC, Canada, always meant that sudden urge to be outside, enjoying whatever sun there was, after an often grey and gloomy west coast winter.
To my mum, born and bred on the Canadian prairies where winter was really winter, it seemed to mean 'spring cleaning'. Time for turning out the closets, banishing any dust, washing and polishing floors, and mothballing (really!) our heavy winter clothes.
Even as a kid and certainly as an adult, I've associated 'Spring Fever' in Vancouver, BC with the blossoming of the cherry trees in April/May. And, of course, with the "Queen's Birthday", the 24th of May, our Canadian holiday that usually heralds the coming of summer.
I pulled these photos out of my albums. Here are my parents at their new home in 1940s Vancouver enjoying their very own cherry tree. I remember that tree even though I was quite small when we left there. Our next house also had a cherry tree (and apple trees as well).
I expect they sent these photos to my Na, mum's mum. At the time they were persuading her to come and live in Vancouver. This house had room for them, and Na, (and me, either just on the way or soon to be). Now like most houses in the area, it's been demolished.
And there might have been a little romance to this tree for my parents as they met and married in Washington, DC, USA where rows and rows of cherry trees have bloomed since the 1910s. I remember my mum talking about them and she had a few pictures.
Vancouver's Cherry Blossom Festival didn't start till 2005, but on our Spring Sunday drives in the 1950s, we'd be out like many families admiring the trees. This wasn't likely something my dad's family had done in earlier Vancouver days, even though grandpa was a gardener and early on many people had cherry trees in their yards or on farms.
The city had started to favour lower flowering trees instead of the bigger shade trees, but the first big installation of cherry trees here was in the 1930s when the Japanese cities, Kobe and Yokohama, sent cherry trees for the World War I Japanese Canadian memorial in Stanley Park.
Plan on being in Vancouver during Spring Fever. Here's a list of the best spots to view the blossoms (and there's now a Vancouver Brewery and Blossom walking tour). Different times!
