aizie in the

HE HAD a heart as big as a bucket, half of it filled with
gin, also a brilliant and glamorous wife who once helped to
hide train robber Bii! Miner and later managed a prize

fighter.

They were Tom Hurley and
Maizie Campbell-Bannerman Ar-
mitage Moore Hurley and they
were One of the good reasons that
Vancouver was like no other city
in Canada. |

Yes, there were giants here in
those days, the ’30s the ’40s and
the ’50s. Since Tom and Maizie
died there has been a noticeable
levelling out of Vancouver society
into something safe, flat and
tasteless. ‘fhis is tofu city now, It
used to be one of rich red beef,
hot sauces and rotgut rye to wash
them down.

Billy McInnes, who had been a
boy magistrate in Yukon during
the gold rush, was still performing
judicial duties at the old Van-
couver police station in the *40s
and he still walked the streets,
tilting sometimes, in a clawham-
mer coal and a boiled shirt with a
shovel hat on his little bald head.
~ Once when he was sending the
day’s crop of drunks to Oakalla
for 10-day sobering up exercises,
Tom Hurley rose unexpectedly
from counsel table. He said he
had not been asked to appear in
“the case, but presented himself by
some obscure rule as a Friend of
the Court.

“)-draw Your Wearship’s atten-
tion to the faci that yesterday was
the birthday of the patron saint of
Dear Old Ireland. Surely, Your
Worship will find it in his heart to
- pardon the exuberance of the
celebration of St, Patrick’s birth
by the gentleman now before you
whose name, you will note, is Tim
O’Shenko. | .

“Not guilty,’ ruled Billy, Mr.
Timoshenko, whose command of
‘English was slender, could not
understand what had happened to
‘him and a constable had'to take
“him by the.arm and point him
~ toward freedom. “

That’s the way we were. ~

» Tom was [rish and had a face
modelled on a potato. He con-:

PAULITICS & PERSPECTIVES

ducted so much of his practice
free for the poor, in the days be-
fore Legal Aid, that he scarcely
had any money himself.

He had friends, he had reputa-
tion, he had wit and charm, but
he never had enough money to
buy a house and he and Maizie
lived in a West End apartment
which had battleship linoleum on
the floors.

Maizie was almost six feet tall,
or seemed so, and strikingly
beautiful. Originally she was of
the Scottish-English aristocracy
and she could be haughty. Nor-
mally, she was naughty.

Her first love was a cowboy in
the Nicola Valley with whom she
tried to elope. They hauled open
the gate of the remuda and
stampeded all the horses so no one
could follow them, but her father
found enough horses to come
after them and carry home his

_ febellious daughter.

’ Maizie later married a prize
fighter in the United States and
acted for many years as his man-

-ager until he drifted away and was

seen nomore.
They had several children, one

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cont eas]
IGNITION SYSTEMS, BRIQUETS

[KEN BAXTER
ILLAWYER “

24 Years
Experience

of whom was killed while serving
with the Mackenzie Papineau
Battalion in the Spanish Civil
War, a loss she mourned all the
rest of her long life,

For the most part, she was wit-
ty, like Tom. She championed the
Indians. Some, including the In-
dians themselves, said she tried to
shanghai thern to her own agenda.
Perhaps she did. There was so
much power and energy in her
that if tended to lay all the
surrounding forest flat asifa
meteor had hit.

She was just about exactly 50
years ahead of her time. She
championed Indian rights to their
lavids and to independence frum
the white community in the years
when such ideas were treated az
jokes.

Even Tom doubted Maizie’s
intuitive claim that Indians were a
race apart with inherent rights
which had never been surrendered.
However, Tom never failed to
take Indian clients at no fees.

Tom died walking their lite toy
lapdog in Stanley Park one
morning. A few days larcr Maizic
strode into the office of Tom
Berger, who had articled in their
office. She slammed her ebony
cane on Tom's desk and said,
“You, you, are now the Indians’
lawyer in this province.""

That was the event which
launched Tom Berger on a career
which led him to the Supreme Court
of Canada and to advocacy of In-
dian causes in this country which
were beyond the imagination of
even Maizie Armitage Camphell-
Bannerman Moore Hurley.

Maizie was buried in the Forest
Lawn cemetery and a piper played
the Lament for her. It was a small
funeral, Already so many of her
contemporaries were gone and her
city filled with new people who
were so decent and so dull.

“Tom retains an odd sort of life

Friday, August 13, 1993 ~ North Shore News ~ 9

lays of €!

among us. You may see him on
tclevision whenever Rumpole of
the Bailey is playing. There stands
Tom, a bit ragged, a champion of
the poor, the weak and the hum-

Expires Aug. 31/93

Use non-gasoline powered garden tools.
An efficient gas-powered mower can produce
more emissions than a new fuel-efficient car.

e giants.

thoroughgoing rascals, a man with
a golden tongue, silver hair and
one copper penny in his pocket.

Incoming framing
order min. $30

Greater
Vancouver
Regional
District

6-7 person spa
this Fri,, Sat., Sun.

Lynn Valle yf Contre, Nor tht Vanteonrwer
(beside Food Fair)

NOTICE TO MOTORISTS
LIONS GATE BRIDGE _..
SINGLE LANE ALTERNATING TRAFFIC

The Ministry of Transportation and Highways advises that there will be single
lane alternating traffice on the Lions Gate Bridge. Single lane traffic is needed
.for the repaving of the viaduct at the NORTH END of the bridge span and will be

in effect as follows:

Friday, August 13 PM / Saturday, August 14 AM
Friday, August 20 PM / Saturday, August 21 AM

11:00 PM - 8:00 AM

Motorists should expect to use an alternate route.

For further information, please call the 24-hour road report information line at’
525-4997 (Greater Vancouver) or *4997 (BC Cellular and Cantel Customers)’:

Province of

British Columbia

)

Ministry of Transportation

LONSDALE QUAY
and Highways

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