Saturday Night Genealogy Fun - Your Best Summer Vacation as a KId

Randy Seaver's been busy again this weekend with his Saturday Night Genealogy Fun!!  challenge. This time he wants to know about 'best summer vacations'.  

I wrote about this quite a while ago, even posted some photos, so I point to that article, written for the 5th Edition of the Canadian Genealogy Carnival way back in 2009, on Sunday, July 12th. Do follow the link and read this again. 

One thing I've realized now though is that our 'big' family vacations weren't in the summer, but rather at Easter time when, in my day, there was always a 10 day or so school holiday. 

Although I don't know for sure, I suspect that by Easter my mum, 'a prairie girl',  was tired of Vancouver's rain and looking forward to, for example, some California sun. 

Summer here is always nice, so we didn't have to go too far from home to have a sunshiny 'day trip' as my dad called it, off to Hope or somewhere to see the country. or for a few days on a little holiday to Vancouver Island, or Sechelt or Bowen Island, or Alta Lake which was a favourite because Dad could always go up on the train and stay for a day or so, then back to work he went. (You may know the Alta Lake area now as Whistler.)

Fun memories! 

Amanuensis Monday - Family Travels

Over the next couple of weeks, I'll be transcribing accounts of two family vacations from old carbon copies I've had 'forever'.

One, an account of an Alaska cruise in 1954, was written by my Na, my maternal grandmother, Amy Estella Irwin (married name: Scott) and typed up, I'm pretty sure, by my mum, or possibly, Dad.

This was a trip with her sister, Maggie (married surname Drummond), on the Canadian National Railway ship, the S.S. Prince George, which left from Vancouver, BC, and travelled to Alaska and back from June 25th to July 5th, 1954. I can remember Na talking about this trip which she remembered with pleasure. She won first prize for 'most original costume' and kept that trophy all the rest of her life. (Yes, I have it now, although years ago, the little plaque was lost.)

Here is a bit of her account (un-expurgated). She begins by describing her sister's 'Gay 90s' outfit, then.

"In contrast I fixed up as a little "Injun". I made myself a pair of tan pants using the lining side-out of our port hole drapes. I fringed tan crepe paper to make my coat and trim of my paper bag moccasins. Made my bow and arrow from a wooden coat hanger, also fringed brown paper into feathers for my head band and had "Chief Eater" in lip stick on the band. [Na claimed she gained 5 pounds on the trip.]


Second prize went to a lady in a rain coat with a lighted coal oil lantern. Her placard read "Passenger on S.S. Pr. George looking for the midnight sun, or in fact any sun."

This is how I remember my Na, social, inventive and very fond of a (clean) joke, especially one involving words.


Names Na mentions as ship mates:

Maggie / Margaret Drummond - sister

Mr. and Mrs. Andresen, of Hollywood, California
Mr. and Mrs. Wright, Indianapolis, Indiana
Mr. and Mrs. Cobb, Edmonton, Alberta
Mr. Pepper, Sacramento, California (a high school principal)
Sheila Pepper
Russ Westover,  cartoonist, and his wife

If you have a connection to any of these people, would love to hear from you.


Amanuensis Monday was started by John Newmark of the Transylvanian Dutch blog to encourage more transcribing of family and family related documents. Click to read his this month's contribution from a recollection of Tecumseh, 1813.

My Na, Amy Estella Scott,

née Irwin, at her birthday celebration at her apartment in Vancouver, BC, 1971.

Canadian Genealogy Carnival - Canadian Vacations

Dad, Dave & Diane, Bowen Island, British Columbia, Canada 1956. Private collection.

Most of the vacation trips I remember from when I was little were short ones close to our home in Vancouver. My parents ran a business together and didn't get away much. Sometimes Dad came to meet us on weekends only.

When I was a bit older, except for Victoria, I don't remember us vacationing locally. Instead my mother and I used to take trips to Portland, Oregon to shop (no sales tax) and with my brother, we also went to California and to Hawaii. I also went to camp, first with the Salvation Army Brownies and Girl Guides at Camp Sunrise, Gibsons Landing, and once? twice? to Camp Fircom on Gambier Island for weekend 'work' parties with a United Church youth group.

The more memorable childhood holidays for me were weekend and week long jaunts to Bowen Island, Sechelt and to Alta Lake, or to Victoria on Vancouver Island. All of these involved boat or ferry trips but all were popular local vacation spots for Vancouverites. My Dad always seemed to know someone wherever we stayed.

Once my mum and I went to Calgary on the train to see the Calgary Stampede. That train ride I remember quite well, and seeing Jay Silverheels in the Stampede parade. (Dreamy!) Oddly, there aren't any photograph of that trip, although I do have the tickets still and a bit of a trip diary. I did bring home a white cowboy hat for myself, but that's long ago 'bit the dust'.

These are the only two photographs from one of our Bowen Island summer vacations. I know I always, always took a doll with me on holidays and there are a few photos like this one which show that. I've been thinking lately that Bowen Island would be a good place for a short 'writing' holiday for me now. Lots of interesting places to stay and things to see too. (Is there a used bookstore, I wonder? I do know there's a Library.)

Mum, Diane with doll and Dave, Bowen Island, British Columbia, Canada, 1956. Private Collection

We had a boat of our own at one time and often went out in it with our parents and Na. I remember little about these excursions except what the boat looked like, but one emergency run when my brother hit his head on a battery is imprinted permanently on my consciousness.

Other vacation activities were day trips. We took commercial cruises up Indian Arm to the now one hundred year old Wigwam Inn, for example. Last summer I noticed Chuck Davis had written about a trip along a similar route - Vancouver City certainly looks different now, but some things are the same.

I don't have any photographs that I can identify as ones from these day trips. I do remember once my mother and I arguing about what I'd wear on an Indian Arm trip. I wanted to wear a green seersucker dress with a darker stripe. My mother wanted me to wear some summery frock, no doubt with a few frills or ribbons. I won! and later she said I was right to wear it as it didn't show the dirt. Her summer whites were much the worse for wear during that voyage! Fancy my remembering that all these years. (Sorry, Ma.)

This was written for the 5th Edition of the Canadian Genealogy Carnival - it's all about favourite Canadian vacations. Where did your ancestors like to spend their summer holidays? Did your family enjoy a favourite beach or cottage? Or did your family travel from sea to shining sea?

The Carnival will be posted on July 15, 2009 at Looking For Ancestors.