“Molly’’ Nye. The home used to be the only one for miles on the narrow road through the trees. But today it is a harrowing experience to back a car out of the driveway on to the busiest thoroughfare in Lynn Valley. Otherwise, it is easy to leave the modern world behind in the Nye home, which is festooned with old portraits, photographs and - memorabilia and surrounded by a prize-winning garden. Nye’s family story reads like a history of Lynn Valley, which her father, Alfred Nye, thought in all accuracy should have been called Lynn ‘Vale.’ He built the house on some of the 160 acres in the area he was deeded for serving in the South . African War. ue The Nye family first came to : British Columbia 101 years ago, noe with the arrival of Alfred’s older : ; brothers Percival, future Captain ae ! of. the Camosun, Bert, who built Depa | the first salmon cannery and : Charles, who installed pipe organs i aloe also took up residence i in Lynn including sister Agnes and brothers George (North Vancouver’s first professional . photographer) and Tom, who was also deeded 160 _acres in the North Lonsdale area. Later, returning from an overseas trip, Alfred met fellow a : North Vancouverite, Olive Punch, a to whom he was married three : Poe months later. Molly’s older brother died when she was a baby, but she remembers her sister being born in the house. (Joyce, who became a teacher, now lives in Vancouver.) 8 - Sunday, February 26, 1989 - Lyan Valley Echo LV has been home for teacher since 1913 i BUILT THE year she was born, in 1913, brown house next to the Baptist Church on Lynn Valley Road is still the home of retired school teacher Florence the charming and goats and were always very busy with their garden. But there were many hard times when, in danger of losing . their house for taxes, the family had to find work elsewhere. When Molly was five, she and her sister went to a small com- munity in southern Alberta where their mother Olive taught. . Water was so scarce that all three had to use the same bath water, which was then used to wash the clothes and, finally, the floor. Conditions worsened that winter until Olive finally quit, taking the girls to their Uncle Tom’s in Garibaldi. Securing another teaching posi- tion near Soda Creek, Olive and the girls took the train to Williams Lake where they slept on the sta- tion floor. Then came a harrowing 34-mile wagon side to Douglas Lake Ranch and from there to the . Fraser River. The rest of the family followed, Molly was glad for a playmate in - this. remote. area, which. was, nevertheless, soon connected to the rest. of | North ‘Vancouver ‘by a streetcar that ran every 20 minutes. ' “We didn’t have a drug store in fat Lynn Valley, but we could’ phone-: — six cents,””'su)5 Molly. 3 - The Chinese fish monger came 3 : by every Friday with his shoulder bo baskets laden with fresh fish pack- i - ed in ice. ; . “But we couldn't buy very much A because there was no refriger- { ation,’’ Molly recalls. The Nyes Kept chickens, rabbits down to McDowell's or “Ander-~ son’s and they’d'send it upon the ~ streetcar’ for. the: price of: the ride, Molly recalls looking with terror through the large cracks in the floor of the cable car as they crossed the river, before pro- ceeding by buggy to their destina- tion, the Glenco school. Home was now a sod-roofed cabin, and Olive taught in the tiny one-room schoolhouse that flood- ed regularly and was plagued by a - ~ family of packrats. Besides these hardships; and helping to deliver a baby from a “woman stranded on the dock by a steamship operator (Molly’s . doll - gave up her clothes to the baby), Olive organized Christmas concerts and the first school library in the Cariboo. After.a brief reunion with Mol-- ly’s father, who was working in construction, Olive went to the University of Alberta to obtain her. Canadian teacher’s. licence and then took up a posting at Fairplay, _ near Calgary. “There she remained until. . Christmas of 1923, when the North. - _ Vancouver School Olive to teach at Roche * Point School, a one-room affair with 30 to 40 students. Molly remembers when the te- nants moved out of their house on Lynn Valley Road, several months "TEXAS STYLE DANCING LESSONS atthe , LYNNWOOD INN ‘TUESDAY NIGHTS 8-9 FREE! "LIVE ENTERTAINMENT EVERY THURS, FRI, & SAT. [a DON'T MISS | ALIBI MARCH . 23,24,25 © MAIN ST. AT MOUNTAIN HWY. See Board. asked | A RESIDENT of Lynn Valley for 76 years, ‘retired teacher Florence “Molly” Nye has seen a bustling com- munity grow up around the Lynn Valley Rord house she has lived in almost continuously since her birth in later, and the whole family moved back in. “It was the happiest day of my life,’’ she says. Despite witnessing her mother's hardships, Molly followed her education at Lynn Valley School with senior matriculation at King Edward and subsequent teacher training at Vancouver Normal School. “In those days you had a choice between teaching, being a tele- phone operator, going out in ser- vice, nursing or working as a shop clerk or stenographer,’’ says Nye. At 18, she boarded a train to the Rocky Mountains to take up her first job at a wilderness school, where she was paid $65 a month. 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