Where Bulbs & Bungalows Met
A NEIGHBOURHOOD HISTORY
Dennis Minaker
For Val, with thanks i
Where Bulbs & Bungalows Met -A Neighbourhood History- Summer 2015
Research and text by Dennis Minaker Layout by Val Minaker
Here-At-Home Publishing 1669 Freeman Avenue, Victoria BC V8P1P5
Cover photograph: Marion Dempster and Barbara Underwood kneeling in Dempster tulip fields, Spring of 1957. Looking south from these Freeman Avenue houses (numbers 1669 to 1673) meant a view of the distant Olympic Mountains - before construction began along Kingsley Place.
Opposite: Aerial view of Shelbourne Valley, 1928. Shelbourne Street runs up the middle, between Cedar Hill Road (left) and Richmond Road (right), to meet Cedar Hill Cross Road at the top. University School (now St. Michaels University School) with its curving driveway is at lower right, immediately below Knight Avenue. Only fenced field and orchards lie between that rough road and Pear Street to the north. Bowker Creek, open to the summer sun, snakes through fields at lower left.
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Contents
Acknowledgements & Introduction 1
Mount Tolmie Nursery 2
Dempster Brothers’ Greenhouse 9
The Whiteoaks of Cedar 14
And Then Came Suburbia 19
St. Michaels University School 27
Additional Notes of the Greater Area 32
First Homeowners, 1950-1957 35
Index 38