story: A Riley Park Soundwalk

Local artist Lindsey Bond put together this amazing Soundwalk that ties together many sites and stories from our blog!

Lindsey walked around the Riley Park neighbourhood and recorded the everyday noises around. By downloading the file to your iPod or CD player, you can follow along with her.

Please take a moment to visit her website. I hope many of you will be able to take this lovely walk and reflect on some Riley Park Stories!

Special thanks to Lindsey for this contribution.

studio: June 27 screening!

During the 18th Annual Little Mountain & Riley Park Festival, we showed videos all day in the story studio theatre!

It was a lovely way to spend a Sunday, with nice people, fun food.... and the dunk tank not far away!

Come this way!

Free popcorn!

Strollers and Hot Dogs allowed!

Even though it was overcast and sometimes sprinkling with rain, the Riley Park Story Studio often had a full house!

story: The Homeless Person

Beza learns a little something from her Dad about a homeless person.

story: Chuck and Irma

Chuck grew up in and around Riley Park. He sold Kool-aid on hot summer days and tried to pull down the girls bathing suits at the Sunset pool.
One unsuspecting girl, Irma, was the recipient of such affections and she was, understandably, none too impressed. Chuck had a bit of a reputation!

Chuck is pictured here in 1963, he is the enthusiastic kid in the foreground!

As Chuck got older he partied in Queen Elizabeth Park in the summer and he skied over moguls on the hills in the winter. Finally, Irma became interested.

Both Chuck and Irma remember making out on the bleachers in Percy Norman pool... and now... they have been married for 33 years!



Chuck became the Engineer of the Community Centre and continues to live in the area!

story: Sunshine Club

When me and my twin sister were in high school, Mom organized a Sunday afternoon film program for the disabled at Riley Park Community Centre. This was the early 80’s after the community centre’s expansion.

Dad was the projectionist, and got the films from the film library at the National Film Board. Mom ran the concession. Us kids would be the helpers.

Folks would enter from the double doors off Ontario and make a left into the first room. It was the room opposite the Senior Centre.

My mom thinks it was called the Sunshine Club.

This program ran for years until it just got too big for the centre.

My parents were always trying to help us kids understand the lives of other people. They wanted us to be more accepting of others and for us to be thankful for what we had.

They would always volunteer us to help out in the community.

Of course my sister said we didn’t volunteer we were volunTOLD!

Haha!

by Ingrid Steenhuisen

story: MONKEY BARS

Me and my twin sister were 13 years old in the early 1970’s and living at 36^th and Main at the time. Mom would let us take our younger siblings (there were 4, soon to be 5, and this gave our Mother a bit of a break/rest) to Riley Park. We would go to swim and swing … being sure to return for dinner. Our youngest brother loved the monkey bars and we learned quicklynever to be in a panic right away if we couldn’t find Fred, at least until you checked the monkey bars! Most often he could be found there!

Along the lane there was different apparatuses where all the kids and teens liked to play on back then: the swings, teeter-totters, the gymnastic trapeze bar and rings, the pool (was open 5 or 6 days a week, each summer) and the monkey bars…Everything (except the swings) was taken out - apparently due to liability issues - replaced by stuff mostly for toddlers. Within the past decade they put in the climbing rock . . . exactly in the same place - where the monkey bars used to be.

Fred was three or four years old when they were building the conservatory at Queen Elizabeth Park. A picture of it was in the Sun newspaper after the brick walls and the roof’s metal framework were completed. The glass panels weren’t installed yet, and it grabbed my Dad’s attention since the construction company was made up of 9 brothers from Holland, and that was my family heritage. Dad shared the picture with all of us, and of course Fred just wanted to climb it, seeing that - to him - it was just another set of monkey bars – GIANT ONES!

story: picture frame

This is my face in a painting that I really like.

I like this photo because that's not the real me. My face is at a window.

I think there is a story along with these characters. There is a mother and a father and a child, but the child is at school. They live in a cottage. They're loving and caring. They would probably have 2 rooms and one bed, and the mother and father would usually sleep at the bed because they are old and the child would sleep on the ground with the pillow and use his clothes as blankets cause there are no blankets. Poor child!

One day the father got fired because he has been stealing money from the cashier. But one day the child decided to get his own job and a man let the little boy work at the school. He saved lots of money till one day he earned lots of money ! He told his parents, he told his neighbour! His parents were surprised of what he did. The parents thanked him so much that they gave the bed to him. The next day he woke up and he was so surprised. He saw five pots of gold money! When the parents woke up and saw five pots of gold the parents said, "Did you do this?" He said "No I didn't." So they fixed the house and it was marvellous! So they lived a happy life!

The end

story: Conversation with Daphne

How do you tell a life story encompassing 93 years?

A difficult prospect, I must say.

Also, being the collector of the stories, I feel privileged to hear and learn more than I can possibly share...but I do my best.

This short video hopes to capture the vibrancy that is Daphne, a few of her memories, a sense of a neighbourhood from a time that seems simple yet hints at the challenges that everyone has...

I thank Daphne for taking the time and having the patience for me to ask a lot of questions!

I thank her son Greg who continues to collect the family history...I hope everyone has someone in their family to take this on!

story: an afternoon at the park

Lisa W met with Marlene, Elena and Stella on Monday May 10, 2010.

Marlene and Todd have been married for 8 years now. Their twin daughters are 2 and a half years old. They live near Main and 28th. The couple met in first year at university. Todd is a web designer, and Marlene is almost done nursing school. Marlene says, "We hoped for this neighbourhood. Mount Pleasant was kind of our dream, and when we found the place we are at now we were like are you kidding me?! Yes we'll take it right now!"

Marlene takes Stella and Elena to the park at Riley Park Community Centre most afternoons after their nap. Today they ride in their red wagon with their pre-packed snacks and their shovel and bucket to play in the sand with. I am tagging along with them this sunny Monday afternoon.

Stella says she is "baking" things in the sand, and comes back and forth telling us there is a strawberry pie baking, and that when she hears the buzzer she will have to go and get it from the oven otherwise it will burn. She marches off with purpose, retrieving her pie and bringing it back to Marlene, saying "It's hot, it's hot!" and watches intently as Marlene "tastes" the pie, saying "Holy moly! It's soo good!" Stella seems quietly pleased and goes off to make another.

Marlene tells me her story in between interacting with the girls, calming tantrums and eating "pies":

"I got pregnant in Japan. Todd and I traveled around a lot before having kids. We taught english in Taiwan and Japan and then traveled all over south east Asia while we were there. We came back to Vancouver and lived in Yaletown for awhile. I notice now that this area is way more community-minded. It's easier to approach people and talk to them, no one thinks you're a whack-o. People want to make friends up here, not that they don't in Yaletown, it's just different. Plus there's houses and yards here, how fun is that, right? We go for walks in the evenings now and it's just so great.

We felt like we hit the jackpot with this park. Now they can handle being in bigger parks. Having the fence around it, and all the structures are low. If they aren't playing on anything they can play in the sand. I can see them everywhere. It's very conducive to having conversations with friends.


It's a great place to meet other moms. We all help each other out. I guess moms do that everywhere, but here you don't have to join the mom's group.

We go everywhere around this neighbourhood. We go to Re Entry all the time. We've been to the play gym in the new community centre but it's so crowded. We used to go to Once Upon a Huckleberry Bush.

The girls and I look for cats in the neighbourhood. We smell all the flowers; tulips, daisies and daffodils are our favourite. There is a house with a great water fountain at 28th and Ontario, we like to go and look at the rocks there. We explore this neighbourhood a lot, it is Elena and Stella's favourite thing to do.

These girls are so clever and funny already. When I was potty training them I would say, "Good job!" when they would do it right. I go to the bathroom with the door open when they are home and when they see me they say "Good job!" with just as much sincerity and enthusiasm as I say it."

Time at the park comes to an end. The girls return to their wagon to finish their snacks on the ride home. Stella remembers I've ridden my bike and that I have to go get it. They all wave at me as we go our separate ways.


It is amazing to me to meet these children being raised by such fantastic parents. I have met so many parents in this neighbourhood who talk to their kids as equals, instead of as little children. They engage their kids in everything going on around them. One of my favourite parts of this neighbourhood is the interesting and intelligent little kids, and one of the most inspiring parts of this neighbourhood for me has been the strong, busy and creative parents.

Thanks to Marlene and co. for letting me tag along and having a lovely afternoon with them!

story: Daphne's kids

Daphne Holmes moved here from England in the 1940's and raised a family...

She was a longtime resident of Riley Park,

a true community player,

a mover and a shaker and

a generous spirit with a very forward thinking attitude toward children and their education.

Daphne with her great-grandchild Abigail Lim in her side garden in the summer of 2008.

One rainy morning I sat with her and her son Greg to learn more about her.

"It is important to get kids to like to come to school. It was Greg who couldn't stand the grade one teacher and I had an awful time with him! He would get to the end of the street and then that was it…

I would get a phone call, 'Is Greg sick?'

And I would say 'No, I sent him to school.'

And he would be hiding and I would have to go find him, but he just couldn't stand that teacher. So I said to the principal at the time, 'Can we change him over?'
And the principal said 'No, he'll have to get used to all these different teachers.'
So I called the school board and said 'He is only 5 years old, and it is an experience for him and he can't stand it! Every child is an individual and you never know what is going to happen, and this one just can't take it!'
I thought this is one time I've got to stand up for him and protect him."

The PTA at General Wolfe School. Daphne is sitting down second from the left.

Circa 1962 or 1964...

"And so I joined the PTA and told them that we have got to do something, so kids are not scared to come into school!

A lot of the kids couldn't care less but then you get these ones that are a little bit shy and people would call them slow, but they are not slow!
A lot of parents would say 'Oh well, they will get through'…but I think you have to stand behind these kids."
(Daphne got Greg successfully transferred from the class but then he got that same teacher again in grade 3!)

"I warned the principal that I would be watching out for him!"

"Because I had 3 boys I was very interested in what was happening in the schools, and I have always gone up different times to meet the new principals to see what was going on, you see, eventually I had my grandchildren going to the same school. It is still a very good school!" (General Wolfe Elementary.)

"I think all my kids' friends knew exactly where the cookie pot was. It was a good thing my husband was on shift work, because after school they all came swooping in! Some mothers were working but of course I wasn't, so I had babysitting at my house. I did eventually go to work, but not until after the boys had grown up."

This picture is from a camping trip in and around the time of cookie thievery, 1962.

Greg (top left), Carl (top right), Marc (bottom left) and Steven (bottom right).

Carl wasn't Daphne's son but a neighbour kid who hung around with them A LOT. Kind of an honourary member of the family.

Also notice Daphne's husband George chopping wood!

"I volunteered every Thursday afternoon, for many years and weighed all the new babies in the neighbourhood at the Health Clinic on Main street at 24th. In fact I might be right to say 27 years! They gave me a little tea and presented me with a little gift saying I had weighed the babies for 25 years... and then one of my neighbours got up and said 'She has been doing that for more than 25 years!'

I knew every kid and watched them grow up! What a happier life than that? And some of their parents I knew when they were kids! Everybody knew where I was on Thursday afternoons."

Here is the health centre June 3, 2010, still there after all these years...

"I met someone I had weighed just the other day at the Centennial Anniversary of General Wolfe School. I attended with my two sons but as we got out of the car into the beautiful blue sky day...there came this incredible storm! So Greg got me settled in the basement so he could go and help outside to bring in chairs and hold the tents down. Rocks were flying off the playground into their faces! I sat with one of the present day General Wolfe students -- because he also didn't want to go out into the storm! As we were chatting, I realized he was a little scared. I told him that one of his parents would soon come and he would be ok. When his mother showed up, I recognized her and then realized I had weighed this little guy I was talking to! He was much bigger of course, so I joked: 'I don't think I could lift you now!'"

"I always liked kids. I took a few years of training [in England] - how to look after kids and that...then, much later, I went back to night school here in Vancouver -- at Langara -- to get my Pre-School Education. I should have done this before my kids were born!

[Historically speaking this program wasn't offered back then!]

I learned an awful lot! I went for 3-4 years, and I was the oldest student. I was in my 50's, I was a grandmother! And I was with all these young people and I had never been to college in my life! But I was the top of the class, probably because I had so much experience being with children already."

Greg: "You got the job right across the street from our house, at Little Mountain Daycare!"

Daphne: "Yes that's right, and I would open up the daycare, then go back and help at lunchtime, and then go back and close. I did that 5 days a week. I was so happy to get so far and in my 50's! And pre-school in those days, was not so well looked after, but now they go to UBC to get their degree. It was a new thing back then. I worked at Little Mountain Daycare until it closed, probably about 20 years or so. I thoroughly enjoyed that."

Daphne and her Little Mountain Daycare kids in and around 1974.

"My husband wasn't too keen on his wife working, but I enjoyed it, and when he saw I was enjoying it, he quit yakking about it and if he got home before me he learned to put the supper on!"

Greg: "Which he never did before…"

Daphne: "And then I would come home from the daycare and supper would be ready for me! I mean, I would make it ready but he would cook it. He would look outside the front window for the last car to leave picking up kids and he would turn the oven on!"

Daphne's husband outside General Wolfe's birthplace in Westerham, Kent... England.

Greg: "It was handy for the daycare too, having my Mom live across the street, when parents couldn't make it to pick their kids up on time, she would just bring them home and then the parents would pick them up here at our house! Convenient for people…especially single moms."

Daphne: "Some kids would even come to my house at 7:30 in the morning... since the daycare didn't open until 8am! And you know, no one ever took advantage of this. Which I was very proud of. Also every year the city would come and check things out at my house to make sure it was all safe. I was licensed to have the kids there. I had a good relationship with the health department! The neighbours wouldn't complain either. The kids would of course play outside too!"

Greg: "My mom, my father and my aunt Pearl started the Seniors Group at Little Mountain Neighbourhood House as well."

Daphne: "It is still going on I think."

The Riley Park Seniors Group. A bunch of big kids! Daphne sits second from the right.

"I think getting my preschool certificate was one of my biggest achievements since I didn't have that much education, there was no such thing as education when I went to school. You went to school, you turned 14 and then you were out. And I was a woman, so there were only so many things you could do. You could be a teacher if you were smart, or a nurse, but that took years."

"The most amazing thing [in regards to living 93 years and seeing so many things change], was the change in children…in that they now ask questions. I don't think at my age we would have ever dared to have done it! I think they aren't closing kids down now, they are opening them up more. That is what I noticed and that is what I tried to do to bring kids out."

"I still get Christmas cards from some of the kids I looked after!"

transcription by lisag

"I feel honoured to meet Daphne."

story: Doors

I sometimes like to take pictures of doors because they may change...or be redesigned.

by Vivian

story: I like taking pictures!

I really enjoy taking pictures of painted stuff.

I like taking pictures of corners!

It looks like they are having a lot of fun!



I really like badminton, it is really nice to play.

This picture is blurry but I like it...



just in case the windows get washed...


and they did get washed!

by Vivian

story: magic wading pool

Before Percy Norman Pool was built, kids in the neighborhood learned the art of swimming and other things in the wading pool beside the caretakers house along side the lane.

Wading pool photo courtesy of VPL

I can remember those hot summers when our mother would round us up and lead us to the pool. We would make the trip up Ontario Street from 24th with our towels flung over our shoulders and our swim suits under our shorts, hopefully.

Marc (left) and Greg (right) sit on Dad's Austin
in the backyard of their house at Ontario and 24th.
photo courtesy of Marc Holmes

We would be strung out along the street following our mother like a family of ducks off to the pond. Our bare feet flapping on the warm pavement and dancing over the scorching asphalt roads that crossed our path. When we rounded the corner, where Percy Norman Pool is today, there was a vacant lot to navigate covered with clover, buzzing bees and hidden pieces of broken glass. Stepping ever so carefully and weaving our way through the maze of traps waiting for us in our bare feet.
Bare feet?
Mother must have been saving those new Woodward's Dollars for runners at $1.49 Day!
All the local families would be spread out on blankets on the grass around the wading pool. We would make our way to the water and stick our feet in. Jeez it was cold! I can remember it like it was yesterday. You would gradually make it in up to that most private of places for kids and stop cold. It seemed like an eternity standing in one spot frozen in time and thought... until some kid splashed you from behind! The culprit most likely would be your older brother and so you got in to it and entirely wet in the following melee forgetting the cold water altogether.
Everyone learned the dog paddle. You could cheat by keeping your feet on the bottom and pretend to swim, but everyone knew what you where doing.
It was primeval panic in that little pool like a school of fish jostling for position and water going every direction at once. Amazing any of the water stayed in the pool! The surrounding concrete was soaked with it.
Boys went running with cupped hands full of water to throw on the backs of girls laying on their blankets peacefully minding they own business. Somehow it delighted us to hear the screams and get a reaction as the cold water splashed over their backs.
There was a magic to that outside pool that you don't get from an indoor one. A certain freedom to run around and just be a kid. Great memories that I'll always remember.
The pool was taken out along with the teeter-totters because of a budget cut from someone at City Hall who probably already lost their own memories of being a kid.

By Greg Holmes

Greg Holmes in an exception to the dress code of the day.

(He was sure to have gotten out of those clothes
immediately after the picture was taken. )

story: The Columbia House

Recollections of a shared house.

Created by J Peachy

story: ABC's on the swings

Marlene and her wonderful twin daughters Stella and Elena.

story: Nothing is as it appears to be

When I first came to Vancouver faced with no job and a very expensive city to rent in, I chose to live out of my car. Which was a brand new Toyota Matrix with tinted windows. This car is actually designed to sleep in. A sleek looking set of wheels parked in front of your house. No one would make assumptions. I quickly found the Main Street area to be my place of comfort. Cool record stores, saucy Cafe barrista's and wannabe fixies who think blowing their knees out is cool.


I was recovering from a sprained ankle procured from the Blowmedown's in Newfoundland. Sometimes tele skiing sucks. Rehabilitation for me was found in the pool. And perfect for $40 a month you can frequent all city pools. As living in a car showering proves to be difficult. Percy Norman became my favourite. Great lane swimming with no Kits jocks and not too many old fogies wanting to race me.

Then of course off to Nester's for a bite and Re-Entry to catch a bit of cool. What a fantastic neighborhood. Funny enough I met the girl of my dreams at Re-Entry, who happened to live on Main and 28th. A love story in it's own for sure. Then moving in with her. Couldn't exactly invite her back to my place. But sadly after 2 years the partnership ended. No longer leasing a Matrix, I find myself living on Ontario and 33rd. Something about Riley Park. I use the kids playground as my gym and run laps around the fields. Pavement is not my thing. I love it here and have fond memories of my car house days. Too many stories to tell. And excited to see what comes next. Remember nothing is as it appears to be.

---Zak Knight---

story: Olympic memory

All of us from Sport Plus afterschool program painted these on the windows of our room in Riley Park Community Centre in February 2010 to support the Olympics.

by Jenny

story: preschool

I remember the times when I was in preschool...like on the first day I cried.



Then my mom took me home. The next day she brought me back and then I didn't cry.

By Jenny

story: monster boilers

These are the boilers

at the

The Riley Park Community Center.

They are called "Steam Pak" and were built in 1959.

Photo by Simon: Riley Park Facility Engineer

story: My Memory of Riley Park

Hi everyone my name is MaryKimberly and I`m in grade 4 I am 10 years old and my dream is to become a superstar singer!
This is an old sign that I have seen for a long time for about 2 long years inside Riley Park community centre.

























The beautiful flowers and the green fresh plants are so pretty that I won`t ever forget them even though they smash down Riley Park because now I have nice pictures of them.























I took a lot of pictures of the building because I heard they were going to break down Riley Park!

I wanted to take amazing pictures of Riley Park so I can remember what it looked like if it`s ever going to be a long time to remember what it looks like.