West Kootenay-Boundary births of 1904

Something happened this month that I (and presumably others) have been waiting more than 21 years for: the release of the 1904 BC birth registrations.

Until 2003, such registrations were made public after 100 years. But the government decided to increase that to 120 years, ostensibly to protect the privacy of living centenarians and prevent identity theft.

I don’t know how that came about. No instances of fraud using birth registrations were cited and I doubt it’s something any centenarians or their families had been lobbying for. What’s more, when someone turns 100, very often a story appears in the media that reveals their exact date and place of birth anyway! That’s about all that is recorded on early birth registrations, along with the names of the parents, doctor, and/or midwife.

I’m not aware that anyone was consulted before the change was made, either the centenarians it was supposed to help or the historians and genealogists to whom such demographic data is invaluable. (If the genealogical community did protest placing restrictions on such information, it was for naught.)

I wrote a letter to the BC Vital Statistics Agency at the time, but I ought to have complained to my MLA. I don’t know whether I would have received any sympathy. There was little to no debate about it in the legislature.

The change took effect in 2004, sealing the 1904 birth registrations until 2025. They finally appeared online this month, more than a year after they were theoretically made public.

Now that we have them at last, what do we find? There were 3,130 registered births in BC in 1904. Of those, 360 took place in the West Kootenay-Boundary. (By comparison, there were 756 births in Vancouver that year.)  

I went through all of those births, something I expect to become an annual exercise for The Kütne Reader. Below is a chart listing births by community in 1904, along with the total number of births in each place from 1890 to 1904, inclusive.  

Place	1904	1890-1904
Nelson	110	772
Revelstoke	74	589
Rossland	49	566
Grand Forks	34	179
Greenwood	28	180
Kaslo	18	206
Trail	18	156
Ymir	14	62
Slocan	12	107
Phoenix	10	68
Sandon	8	56
Trout Lake	8	36
New Denver	5	104
Nakusp	5	39
Eholt	5	14
Silverton	4	35
Ferguson	4	17
Midway	3	36
Rock Creek	3	22
Anaconda	3	21
Salmo	3	13
Sirdar	3	9
Beaton	3	5
Creston	2	15
Three Forks	2	13
Fife	2	2
Winlaw	2	2 [1]
Ainsworth	1	26 [2]
Cascade	1	13
Erie	1	5
Bear Lake	1	1
Bridesville	1	1
Gutelius	1	1 [3]
Poplar	1	1
Rock Mountain	1	1 [4]
Westbridge	1	1
Westley	1	1
Arrowhead	0	15
Pilot Bay	0	12 [5]
Waneta	0	10
Columbia	0	8
Boundary Falls	0	4
Comaplix	0	4
Robson	0	4
Sidley	0	4
Hall Siding	0	3
Castlegar	0	2
Cody	0	2
Galena Bay	0	2
Kitchener	0	2
Rosebery	0	2
Alamo	0	1
Lemon Creek	0	1
Whitewater	0	1
Bluebell mine	0	1
Brandon	0	1
Bulldog Tunnel	0	1 [6]
Vallican	0	1 [7]
Total	360	3,365

[1] Includes one birth erroneously recorded as Winslow.

[2] Includes one birth recorded as Kootenay Lake.

[3] Gutelius is today known as Slocan Park or Passmore.

[4] Recorded as Greenwood.

[5] Includes one birth recorded as Kootenay Lake.

[6] Recorded as Brooklyn.

[7] Delayed registration. Vallican had not yet been named.

Places that had their first registered births in 1904

Bear Lake, Bridesville (presumably a delayed registration, because Bridesville hadn’t been named yet), Gutelius, Poplar, Rock Mountain, Westbridge, and Westley.

Places that existed in 1904, but had not yet recorded any births

Argenta, Balfour, Beaverdell, Burton, Camborne, Crawford Bay, Denoro, Edgewood, Farron, Howser, Kuskonook, Lardeau, McGuigan, Paterson, Sanca, Slocan Junction, St. Leon Hot Springs, Thrums, and Yahk.

The number of births in each community gives us an idea of its economic health and relative importance in any particular year and over time, tempered by the fact that many mining camps were made up mostly of single men and therefore wouldn’t be expected to have many births.

The number of births in a community in 1904 relative to its total number of births is also a potential indicator of whether it was on the rise or decline. For instance, Ymir’s 14 births were 22.5 per cent of its total births to date (perhaps related to its new hospital). By contrast, Arrowhead, Pilot Bay, and Waneta, which had recorded 15, 12, and 10 births respectively through 1903, saw none in 1904. Ainsworth had 25 births through 1903, but only one in 1904.

Quite a few births were registered years or decades after the fact, although it’s seldom clear what prompted people to do so. We can assume many more births were never registered.

Geneva Smith

The first person on the list of 1904 West Kootenay-Boundary births when sorted alphabetically by place is Lydia Geneva Smith King, who was born Nov. 9 at Ainsworth.

Geneva was the daughter of Grant and Sarah King, who ran a hotel known as … the Grant King. It was subsequently operated by John Burns and renamed the Silver Ledge Hotel. In the mid-1970s it was turned into a museum. Sadly, it burned down in 2010. The late Lawrie Duff, who owned the museum, interviewed Geneva in Vancouver in the early 1980s and kept in touch with her. 

Geneva’s birth registration reveals she was delivered by Dr. Gilbert Hartin of Kaslo and that her birth was registered by Rev. D. Jeannotte, a well-loved Catholic priest from Sandon, I found his name on several other 1904 birth registrations from Kaslo and Nakusp.

Now we know exactly when Geneva was born, but when did she die? She reached her 100th birthday and is the only centenarian I am aware of who was born in Ainsworth. Duff thought she died around 2009, age 104 or so, but no obituary ever appeared. Unlike birth registrations, death registrations in BC become public after 20 years, so if Geneva died in 2009, we should be able to confirm it around 2030.

Grant King Hotel, date unknown, but prior to 1912 when a new wing was added. (Lawrie Duff fonds/Kootenay Lake Historical Society)

Chinese-Canadian births

There were two local Chinese-Canadian births in 1904.

• We Ping Hop Yuen was born at Rock Creek on Feb. 1 (although his birth was originally recorded as Dec. 17, 1903 before that date was scratched out). His parents were Hop Yuen and Maggie Lum Kee (also known as Lim Kee).

We Ping’s registration was one of two filed at Cranbrook on Sept. 14, 1904 by Hop Yuen, by which time the family was living in Fort Steele. The other registration was for a baby named We Sing Hop Yuen, born to the same couple at Rock Creek on Sept. 22, 1901.

On the 1911 census, we don’t see any of the Hop Yuen children with birthdates that match those registrations. Instead, the eldest kids are listed as Robert, born January 1902, and Albert, born July 1903. Despite the inconsistent birthdates, we can conclude these two are We Sing and We Ping. Albert, who later took his stepfather Albert Aimer’s surname, was a miner. He died in Prince George in 1987, age 83. His death registration said he had been born in Rock Creek on Feb. 1, 1904.

Read more about this family in a previous blog post about Chinese and Indigenous births at Rock Creek, of which there were at least 13 between 1872 and 1913.

We Ping Hop Yuen’s birth registration. He was later known as Albert Francis Aimer.

• Chew Hong Mar was born in Nelson on Sept. 1, but because his registration hasn’t been digitized I don’t know who his parents were and haven’t been able to find anything else about him. He doesn’t appear on a 1923 list of native-born Chinese Canadians. His appearance comes as a surprise because previously Mar Shu Ling, born in 1911, was thought to be Nelson’s first Chinese-Canadian birth.

Twins

I only noted two sets of twins in the West Kootenay-Boundary in 1904.

• James Edward and John Joseph Madden were born in Nelson on Aug. 14 to Thomas and Margaret Madden, the proprietors of the Madden Hotel. For some reason, their births were not registered until 1915. 

Jimmy and Jack, as they were known, took over the family business in 1940 and operated the hotel until 1957 when they sold the property at the corner of Ward and Baker to Woolworth’s. The hotel was demolished two years later in one of the city’s most unfortunate heritage losses. That came only a few weeks after Jimmy’s death and less than two years after Jack’s death. Their sister Sadie outlived them by over 35 years. Jack’s sons Larry and Dave co-own a property at Longbeach and come out to visit from Calgary several times a year.

The Madden Hotel is seen at right in the 1920s. (Greg Nesteroff collection)

• Irene Ellfleda and Roy Maxwell Labadie were born Aug. 17 in Grand Forks to William and Nina Labadie. Their father was a CPR express messenger based in Midway. Presumably their mother went to Grand Forks to give birth because there was a hospital there. They were delivered by Dr. E.R. Northrop and a Mrs. Carter.

Sadly, Roy died in Cranbrook when he was only two. The cause was heart failure blamed on inflammatory rheumatism. Irene became a dressmaker and married Claire Estabrooks in New Westminster in 1927. They divorced and she married Hugh Davidson in 1938. They moved to California around 1948. Irene died in San Mateo, Calif. in 1963.

Cousins

Of the three people born at Sirdar in 1904, two were first cousins. Jacob Pascuzzo was born to Santo and Maria Pascuzzo while Rosa Pascuzzo was born to Antonio and Marie Pascuzzo. Neither birth was registered until 1912 and there is some doubt about their actual birthdates.

According to the registrations, Jacob was born on Oct. 1 and Rosa (actually registered as Ross) was born three days later. When Jacob died in Cranbrook in 1985 his death registration gave his birthdate instead as Oct. 14.

When Rosa married Philip Sacco in 1923, she listed her full name as Rosa Philomena Pascuzzo. In 1969, she applied to amend her birth registration to list her name as Rosaria (no middle name) and her birthdate as Sept. 15. When she died in Cranbrook in 1988, her death registration called her “Rosaria Philomena aka Rose” and gave her birthdate as Sept. 15.

Fifers

There were two Boundary communities whose birth registrations I was especially interested to see: Fife and Phoenix. In the late 1990s, I started keeping track of people born in those places after noticing we were rapidly losing them. The last Phoenician died in 2018 and the last Fifer in 2021.

The earliest births at Fife, a mostly Italian community along the railway above Christina Lake, took place in 1904.

• The very first Fife birth, who I did not previously have on my list, was Angelina Maida, born on Jan. 5 to Michel and Catherine Maida. At least four of Angelina’s siblings were also born in Fife (Albert, Angelo, Lou and Ralph) but I don’t know what became of her. She’s not listed with the family on the 1911 census, so I presume she must have died, although there is no death registration for her.

• Leonard Tedesco was born 10 days after Angelina Maida. I had him on my list, but his birth was not registered. When he died in 1981 in Nelson, his death registration said he was actually born in Grand Forks. However, his obituary said Fife.

• Leonard (Leo) Talarico (also spelled Telerico) was born on May 27. I didn’t have him on my list until now. He died on Dec. 19, 1981 in Clackamas, Ore. There were other Talaricos born in Fife, but Leo was not a sibling to any of them.

Overall, I now have 94 Fife births on my list between 1904 and 1931 (53 boys, 39 girls, two unknown). I also have a list of 18 births at nearby Hilltop between 1911 and 1929 (six boys, 12 girls).

The Fife lime quarry as seen in Cominco magazine in the 1940s.

Phoenicians

There were 10 registered births in Phoenix in 1904. Of these, six I already had on my list. Plus I had nine others whose births were not registered. The four I didn’t have were:

• Victor Marks, born Jan. 6. Died April 5, 1997 in White Rock.

• Mabel Louise McMillan, born Feb. 2. Died March 13, 1998, Kitsap, Wash.

• Harold Benjamin Trevorrow, born Feb. 15. Died April 8, 1912 in Rossland, although I haven’t learned the cause. Two of his sisters were also born in Phoenix.

• Greta McDonald, born Dec. 24. Died Dec. 27, 1983 in Spokane. Greta’s birth registration wasn’t filed until 1952.

I was also able to fill in some details and fix some mistakes on other people already on my list:

• Leo S. Anderson’s middle name was Silas. He was born Oct. 1 and died March 1, 1993 in Cashmere, Wash.

• Edward William Jeffery Knott was born Oct. 18, 1904. I had him down as being born in 1905. He died in November 1985 in King County, Wash.

• Two brothers named Fife were born in Phoenix. (Conversely, and sadly, no one born in Fife was named Phoenix.) I got them mixed up because they were born less than a year apart. George Thomas Fife was born Oct. 15, 1903 and died June 16, 1998 in Florida. Lemuel Earl Fife was born Oct. 9, 1904 and died Feb. 12, 1969 at Five Islands, N.S. I previously had George born in 1904 and Lemuel born in 1906.

Overall, I now have 572 Phoenician births on my list between 1899 and 1920 (265 boys, 301 girls, six unknown). The total number of registered births between 1899 and 1904, inclusive, is 69, but the total number on my list for that period is 85, including 16 unregistered births. I once guessed the all-time number of births in Phoenix to be 300. I was way off.

The Phoenix hospital, designed by Francis Rattenbury, was in use from 1901-17. (Greg Nesteroff collection)

Born where, exactly?

For the most part, birth registrations in 1904 just listed a community of birth. They didn’t say if someone was born in a hospital, at home, or elsewhere.

I found a few exceptions.

• Harold Benjamin Trevorrow, also noted above in the section on Phoenicians, was born Feb. 15 at the Snowshoe mine.

• Harry Yelverton Steele was born on Oct. 28 at “the vicarage” in Grand Forks. His father’s profession was listed as “clerk in holy orders.”

• Cecil James Bagnall Russell was born on June 9 at Sacred Heart Hospital in Greenwood.

• Anne Isabel Wilkes was born Sept. 24 on Silver Street in Greenwood, presumably at home.

• The colourfully named John Alfred Rainbow was born April 24 in Allen’s Addition, a neighbourhood in upper Kaslo.

• Florence Maud Hooker, born July 27, stated in a delayed registration filed in 1945 that she was born in Trout Lake in the “upper story of a barber shop.” Her dad was the barber.

While it was unusual to note the building where someone was born, one local doctor kept track of something else. Dr. G. Edward Duncan of Ymir was the only local physician I have found who diligently recorded times of birth.

Name game

• Darwin Ogden Clemens was born in Nakusp on Sept. 29. His father filed a birth registration on Oct. 22. Then Father Jeannotte, the Catholic priest, filed a second registration on Dec. 6. The difference was that the second registration included another name: now the baby was Joseph Darwin Ogden Clemens, better matching his father’s name, which was Joseph Ogden Clemens.

• Thomas Henry Richmond Stoddart was born in Nelson Dec. 14. His parents had a change of heart and in early 1905 decided to call him William Davis Ferguson Stoddart instead.

• On March 10, a girl was born on Rock Mountain, four miles from Rock Creek, and named I.C. Mabel Burns. The birth registration gave no indication what the initials stood I.C. stood for.

• While she wasn’t born in West Kootenay, the most unusual name I came across among the 1904 births belonged to a girl born at Coal Creek (now a ghost town near Fernie). She was called Radient Snow. Note the spelling. She also had a younger sister named Verdant. Radient — who went by Ray — married George Callow. She died in Vancouver in 1989.