LEARNING about the past from people who lived it is one of the great pleasures of writing this column.
Edna Morse, born in Vancouver on June 5, 1913, and a resident of West Vancouver since 1938, has memories that go back a very long way.
Morse's father, Swan Goranson, was 16 when he arrived in Vancouver from Sweden, two years after the city's Great Fire. Swan and his brother, Hans, are listed on the Vancouver census rolls as fishermen. By 1898, the year of the Great Fire of New Westminster, Swan was the owner of a grocery store on Hastings Street.
In 1900, Aina Lind came to Vancouver to join her sisters, one of whom, Rosa, was married to Hans Goranson. Six years later, Swan and Aina married and moved into the house he had built on East Pender Street. There Edna and her twin brothers, Paul and Ewalt, known as Ed, were born. Although that part of the city was predominantly Scandinavian and the children spoke only Swedish until they started at Seymour School, Morse recalls that 27 nationalities were represented in her grade.
Childhood was a time of freedom for Edna and her pals. They walked or rode the streetcars all over the city. A nickel would buy them an afternoon of cliffhanger adventure serials at the movies. Summers, the children would visit the PNE, returning home with bags full of samples and giveaways. They would follow the trail through Stanley Park to swim at Third Beach, where Morse would place a bouquet of dandelions on the grave of Pauline Johnson.
The family moved to Kerrisdale where Morse graduated from Magee secondary. By then the Depression was in full force and after two years at UBC she went to work to help support the family. Morse does not regret leaving school. "It was the only thing to do," she says. Morse talks about the love she and her brothers had for each other, insisting, however, that she was not their pet, rather she was "their tease," especially during their childhood days.
Both brothers went on to distinguished careers, Ed in cancer research and Paul as an artist.
In 1933, Paul enrolled in the newly opened British Columbia College of Arts. Morse, hired as
the school's registrar, has vivid memories of founders Jock Macdonald and Fred Varley. Varley, a member of the Group of Seven, was a mesmerizing storyteller, she recalls. "He had the gift of art and of words." Emily Carr would turn up from time to time, "a little square lady in a coat down to her ankles." The school folded after only two years yet its influence on Vancouver's cultural community is still remembered.
Paul and fellow artists E.J. Hughes and Orville Fisher had a studio in the dome of the Sun Tower on Beatty Street.
On her lunch hours, Morse would walk over from her job at a lumber company to bring doughnuts to the not-so-starving artists. Calling themselves the West Coast Brotherhood and popularly known as the "Three Musketeers of Art," they took on commissions for murals that culminated in a series, long since vanished, on British Columbia industry for the 1939 Golden Gate Exposition in San Francisco. The trio signed on as war artists in the Second World War and Paul went on to a career as the scenic artist for New York City's Metropolitan Opera.
Morse's face lights up as she recalls life in Vancouver: evenings of dancing at the Commodore and Peter Pan ballrooms and weekends hiking on the North Shore mountains. During one hike on Grouse Mountain, "I stumbled over a root and fell flat on my face in the mud," she remembers. "George Morse picked me up."
George and Edna married and moved to West Vancouver in 1938, the year the Lions Gate Bridge opened. George, who died in 1982, was active in the West Vancouver Lions Club.
Edna continues to participate in the Special Services group at the West Vancouver Seniors Activity Centre and in her chapter of the women's organization, PEO.
She enjoys her family - three children, six grandchildren and twelve great grandchildren - and sharing her memories over a cup of strong Swedish coffee.
