I’ve always wanted to cover the legacy of Fraser Wilson with more depth, and I’ve never been able to crack the case. I recently learned of The Fraser Wilson Collection at heritageburnaby.ca. Fraser Wilson was one of the founding members of the Burnaby Historical Society, and his role establishing the society was covered in the media last fall when the society disbanded:
Created in 1957, the Burnaby Historical Society was the brainchild of Barry Mather, a columnist for the Vancouver Sun and Province newspapers. In the summer of ‘57 he phoned his friend Fraser Wilson, a Sun cartoonist, to suggest they form a Burnaby historical society.
There’s precious little about Fraser Wilson on the Interwebs, so here’s the best overview we’ve got from the Fraser Wilson chapter in the book Pioneer Tales of Burnabywhich can be read online here:
Although Fraser Wilson was born and raised in the Grandview district of Vancouver and was not to move to Burnaby until he had reached adulthood, his kin was connected to the municipality in what surely must have been its most critical years. The municipality was not even a municipality, in fact, when various relatives of his arrived in 1891 to help build the rail line which was to become the B.C. Electric Railway Co.’s Central Park interurban.
It was this interurban, the super-efficient transportation system with the folksy touch, which hastened incorporation of Burnaby as a municipality on Sept. 24, 1892. The original single line, opened in late 1891, was double tracked 20 years later for even greater capacity.
The BCER, which inherited the line from the bankrupt Westminster & Vancouver Tramway Co., did indeed encourage and abet the development of the rural municipality by offering so-called settlers’ tickets for years.
They cost $3.50 for 50 rides and entitled the rider to transfer onto the street car system. The BCER did not feature this special for wholly altruistic reasons, granted, but more to help fill the company coffers.
A well-populated municipality was insurance for a healthy bottom line, especially after a second interurban was built along the south side of Burnaby Lake. Greater ridership, in turn, would utilize more electricity produced by the company’s new hydro-electric projects at Buntzen Lake and Stave Falls.
Fraser Wilson’s grand-uncle, Roderick Sample, was the road foreman during construction of the Central Park interurban and was named its first roadmaster in 1897. The BCER later promoted him to track inspector. He cut an impressive figure what with his six-foot-plus height and magnificent white beard.
Mr. Sample also built a 15-room boarding house beside the Westminster & Vancouver Tramway Co.’s steam power house and car barn on Griffiths near Kingsway. The company had decided at the last minute to use electricity over horses to mobilize the interurban trams.
The boarding house was run single handedly at first by Mr. Sample’s wife, Minnie, who soon summoned her widowed sister, Catherine McRae, from Everett, Wash. So Mrs. McRae arrived in Burnaby with her daughter, Alexandra, who was called Allie; she would become Mr. Wilson’s mother.
The boarding house was the centre of both social and business activity for the Westminster & Vancouver Tramway Co. and its successor, the BCER. Gandy dancers, many of them Chinese, would eat their lunch on the veranda on rainy days.
Adney James Wilson, called Ab, started with the BCER as a machinist in 1898. An ingenious man who had a number of inventions to his credit, he became BCER inspector of rolling stock in 1916. He established the company’s original medical insurance plan. Ab Wilson married Allie McRae, the newly-weds moving into a house at 1648 Graveley Street in east Vancouver. Here their son, Fraser, was born and raised; his interest in the BCER, avid to this day, was understandably instilled in him at an early age.
The Wilson family connection with the BCER goes even further. The grandly named Eli Egriphan Sampson Joseph Jeffrey Maneer, his cousin Eli, was a gifted sign writer who designed the gold leaf script used on all BCER street cars, trams and freight rolling stock.
Cousin Eli, who talked with a decided stutter, also applied the numbers and logos by hand. Fraser Wilson and other children in the family delighted in chanting Cousin Eli’s name over and over; he can do so without hesitation today.
Mr. Wilson learned the skills of sign writing from Cousin Eli and continues in the business as an octogenarian. Some years ago, Mr. Wilson painted a portrait of Robert Burnaby and donated it to Burnaby; it still hangs in a place of honor at Municipal Hall.
As a postscript to his story, Mr. Wilson points out that many historians, those from the B.C. Electric Co. included, have misspelled his grand-uncle’s name as Semple. He thinks the error can be traced to Roderick Sample’s signature in which the 'a’ can easily be mistaken for an 'e’.“I was born in Vancouver in 1905, growing up in the Grandview area right next to Burnaby. But it wasn’t until 1944 that I actually moved there. Many members of our family, though, including my father Adney Wilson, were connected in some way with the interurban which ran through Burnaby.
Dad became a working machinist for the B.C. Electric Railway in 1898, and was promoted to rolling stock inspector in 1916. He started the Medical Attendance Association, which was like an insurance plan.
Father was also an inventor but never marketed his inventions. He did hold the patent, however, for a device which elevated a platform for a truck or wagon, inventing it before the First World War.
He also invented a draftsman’s rotating table and a roller coaster which used man power rather than machine power. My mother, Alexandra McRae Wilson, was one of the first switchboard operators for the B.C. Telephone Co.
Around 1891 when the Central Park interurban was being built, my great-aunt Minnie Sample and grand-uncle Roderick Sample - their name has incorrectly been spelled Semple by some - built a 15-room boarding house beside the B.C. Electric Company’s power house and car barn on Griffiths Avenue close to Kingsway.
Roderick Sample was the interurban’s first roadmaster in 1897, and later became track inspector for the BCER.
The boarding house was used by the personnel of the B.C. Electric Railway, and was often the site of various meetings. It lasted only as long as the construction of the Central Park line did, closing in 1902.
When the boarding house became too much for Aunt Minnie to handle all by herself, she sent for her widowed sister, Mrs. McRae, who came to Canada from Everett, Wash. with her daughter. The daughter, Alexandra, was to become my mother.
Many of the gandy dancers, or railroad construction workers, were Chinese who had worked on the Canadian Pacific Railway. Aunt Minnie had them eat lunch on the veranda of the boarding house when the weather was poor. She and my grandmother would put out towels, soap and bowls of water so the workers could wash up.
One particular morning, Grandmother was leaning against the door when the Chinese workers were filing onto the front porch. Just for some conversation, she said to one of them: 'Heap lainy day today, eh, John?’ The young man replied: 'Yes, ma'am, it sure is an inclement morning.’ Well, she never spoke pidgin English to them again.
Out of the 50 or 60 Chinese men, the one she had spoken to had been born in Victoria. His name was Cumyow, and he was working there only so he could earn his tuition fees at Victoria College. He later became a lawyer in Vancouver.
I would often visit my dad in the car barns. What could well have become my last visit there was the time I climbed into the cab of an electrical locomotive and touched the controls, causing the engine to move backwards.
In a few moments the coupler broke, so through the barn door I went, a motorman for the B.C. Electric Railway for all of two minutes. It was a thrilling moment for me whenever I could ride at the front of a street car with my dad.
My parents were quite keen on lacrosse games, so we often rode through Burnaby on our way to a game in New Westminster. We’d sit on benches on a flat car which was pulled by the tram to Queens Park.
Sometimes, we’d visit a family by the name of Cleghorn; they lived on Jubilee Avenue in Burnaby, just north of Jubilee Station.
At that time, Burnaby was a small group of stores and houses on Kingsway, with another such grouping on East Hastings. The population was perhaps 500 or 600 until the 1920s, concentrated mainly in the corners but not at the centre. Burnaby had a ward system with the administration over in Edmonds.
My cousin, who taught me the trade of sign writing, was a very interesting man. Cousin Eli had a decided stutter, and on Sunday afternoons, his visit with us would begin with 'h-h-h-hello’ and end with 'g-g-g-got to go’.
During his visit, he would light up his pipe and nod his head at the comments made by my father. His name was about the only thing he could say without a stutter or stammer. That was some feat in itself, because his full name was Eli Egriphan Nimrod Sampson Joseph Jeffrey Maneer.
Eli himself not only liked telling people what his full name was, but got some pleasure out of us chanting it over and over again. Cousin Eli enjoyed hearing it, and we enjoyed saying it.
Eli Maneer was a fine craftsman, and had developed the familiar and distinctive script used in the B.C. Electric insignia. He numbered and applied the BCER signs on all the street cars by hand in gold leaf.
The growth of Burnaby, even the relatively little I’ve seen, has truly been staggering. From such a small farming community to a flourishing residential area - the progress has been magnificent.”
If you ever come across more info about Fraser Wilson, or find more original signed artwork by the cartoonist, please let me know!