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Our beautiful summer before the Great War

Vancouverites enjoyed car races, baby contests, economic upturn leading up to war

July 1914. The eve of a war that would consume Europe for four years, leaving millions dead and maimed.

Although the local newspapers were filled with increasingly alarming headlines that July, for Vancouver it was an idyllic summer.

“Beautiful haying weather,” Fitzgerald McCleery wrote in his diary on more than one day that July. On his farm on the Fraser River, just west of modern Marpole, McCleery wrote of splitting wood, wagon rides, milking cows, cutting green oats for hay, trips to “the city” to see the doctor, Sunday sermons at the nearby Presbyterian church, gathering apples and blackberries, blasting stumps with dynamite to clear new fields, and laying galvanized pipe for water.

No mention of war, until the entry of Sunday, Aug. 2, when he wrote, “Rumors of war between Germany, France, Servia, Austrian Hungary and probably England.”

McCleery made infrequent trips to Vancouver City, which in those days only went as far south as 16th Avenue, and so he may not have seen many newspapers. Early in July 1914, the Vancouver Daily Province focused on the question of Irish home rule, Pancho Villa’s revolution in Mexico, the antics of a Scottish suffragette who threw a rubber ball at King George and Queen Mary, and whether 376 “Hindus” aboard the Komagata Maru, anchored in Burrard Inlet for nearly two months, would be allowed to enter Canada.

But as July progressed, events in Europe filled the headlines.

“Possibility of Armed Conflict Between Austria and Servia,” the Province reported on July 22. And, prophetically, “Possibility that Russia May Intervene, Embroiling All Europe.”

Austria declared war on Serbia (as it was later spelled) July 28.

“War Has Begun on Servian Frontier,” the Province reported that day. “Doubt as to Whether Britain Can Keep out of the Fray.”
British Foreign Minister Sir Edward Grey gave dire predictions that war could be “the greatest catastrophe that has ever befallen [Europe].”

“France Sees Little Hope Now For Peace,” the paper reported the next day, predicting that Russia would support Serbia. “That a ‘big war’ seems almost certain is the best French opinion last night.”

Germany declared war on Russia Aug. 1, and on France Aug. 3, and began marching through Belgium.

By Aug. 4, all hopes of peace were dashed. An “Extra” edition of the Province, published at 4:30 p.m., solemnly declared: “Britain and Germany Now at War.”

The buildup to war
In the month leading up to what McCleery would refer to as the “Great War” in his diary that August, Vancouverites were concerned with more mundane summer activities.

A crowd of 4,000 attended the ninth annual Police Mutual Benefit and Athletic Association’s track and field day at Hastings Park on July 22. One of the highlights was a tug of war by mounted police officers.

“Ten police officers participated in this event, much amusement being afforded the spectators by the antics of the horses and their riders as they gyrated around,” the Province reported the next day. “Pulling a rope on a wild plunging steed is no easy task... The horses dug their feet into the ground, their riders clung to their reins and in some cases embraced their steeds around their necks, all the time endeavoring to exert a pull on the rope held in the other hand. Several of the contestants were dismounted but that did not dismay them...”

At Minoru Racetrack in Richmond that July, “Terrible Teddy” Tetzlaff and other “speed kings” wowed spectators with automobile races featuring the steel-helmeted Tetzlaff behind the wheel of his 300-horsepower “Blitzen” Benz, “the fastest and most powerful car in the world and the holder of the famous mile in 25 2/5 seconds.”

On July 11, the Vancouver Exhibition (now called the PNE) announced it would host the Better Babies Contest, in which doctors judged a baby’s “physical and mental development” out of a possible 100 points, with diplomas for the winners. Parents bringing an infant to the September fair could learn “how it can be made a perfectly well baby — a baby who does not cry except when actually hurt.” Contest organizers added: “With proper care and feeding of children the entire health of the nation can be built up.”

Summer in the city
The hot summer saw wildfires — caused by brush clearing in rural areas — threaten campers near White Rock. Around 3 a.m. on July 24, forest rangers rousted people from their tents and told them to flee the wind-driven flames.

No one was injured, and the campers were soon able to resume their holidaying.

Vancouverites enjoyed the local beaches, but it wasn’t all balmy weather. On July 20, the Province reported that a gale the evening before drove seven or eight boats up onto the beach at English Bay, where they were “smashed to matchwood.”

The boats included two Japanese fish boats, a sailboat, and private motor launches owned by wealthy Vancouverites. C.R. Gordon had been hosting “a party of ladies and gentlemen” aboard his yacht, anchored near Englesea Lodge, when the gale struck. Two staff from Simpson Brothers, a company offering “boating and bathing” at English Bay, used a dinghy to bring the guests to land, but on its second trip in through the violent surf, the dinghy flipped, tossing everyone into the sea. Fortunately, those aboard made it safely to shore.

The pair returned in their dinghy to the yacht to secure it, but didn’t have enough rope. Lifeguard Joe Fortes — today, a Vancouver legend — went to their aid.

“Their signals were seen by Fortes and he took a coil of rope on his shoulders and swam out with it as the surf was such at the time that the small boat could not make the shore again,” the Province reported.

Hope in the air
After the economic downturn of 1912, things were looking up. On July 9, the Sun quoted Reeve (Mayor) Kerr of the Municipality of South Vancouver as saying that “the worst of the depression was past and the district was on the upgrade.” He announced that more than 500 men would be hired, in the year ahead, for municipal work that included road paving, new sewers, and waterworks.

The society pages described a “merry party” that attracted a “fashionable” group of philanthropists to the Hotel Vancouver. Proceeds went to the building fund of a “residential club and social centre for working [employed] girls.”

Grocery store owners, however, weren’t happy with the Early Closing Bylaw recently enacted in the City of Vancouver. On July 31, the Sun reported their protests against being forced to close at 6 p.m. Grocerymen, it said, were “up in arms” since the most profitable hour of their day was between 6 and 7 p.m.

Preparing for war
Even before Britain officially declared war, Vancouverites prepared for the inevitable. On Aug. 3, the 72nd Regiment Seaforth Highlanders of Canada paraded through downtown Vancouver, led by a pipe band and their commanding officer, Lieutenant-Colonel R.G.E. Leckie.

“All the way along the route the people who thronged the streets in such numbers as to seriously interfere with street car traffic went wild with enthusiasm and cheered themselves hoarse,” the Province reported the next day. “Many recruits were taken on after the parade, so many applying that recruiting and attestation will be carried on again tonight.”

On the morning of Aug. 4, around 200 women attended a meeting of the Imperial Order Daughters of the Empire. Their goal: “organization of voluntary nursing, medical and first aid corps in preparation for the anticipated outbreak of hostilities between Great Britain and Germany.”

The end of summer
On Aug. 8, McCleery wrote in his diary “European war still raging.” Like many, he probably expected the war to be over quickly.

On Aug. 16, he wrote, “Miss Park and Miss White went to the city to the service of the 2,000 volunteers to go to war whenever called.” And on Aug. 19, he noted that the papers reported a “great battle being fought between Germany and Belgium and her ally France.”

McCleery was 75 when the war broke out — far too old for military service. The closest he’d come to a violent explosion was when his neighbour, Mr. Lyle, used too much stumping powder on Aug. 27, sending stones flying onto the roof of his house.

For McCleery—and for many Vancouverites — August 1914, like the month that had preceded it, was an idyllic month of “beautiful weather,” work and play. A storm had broken in Europe, and volunteers for the war were mobilizing locally, but the flotsam of the Great War had yet to wash up on Vancouver’s shores.

smedwoman@shaw.ca