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Magee Secondary 2014 Centennial Memoir
Magee Secondary 2014 Centennial Memoir is a book everyone will want to have in their library. This full color, hard cover, labor of love has been produced by Doug Sturrock, retired Magee Teacher (PE Department Head, 1971 - 1998), and his team of dedicated researchers and writers.
The Memoir comprises over 275 pages and features:
- A revised history of Hugh Magee, after whom the school is named
- A timeline and summary of the school's history (1914-2013)
- A section on the history of Kerrisdale
- Lists of Graduates, Teachers, Principals/VP's with selected biographies
- Lists of Valedictorians, Student Councils, and Grad Committees (1990-2014)
- Stories and images of activities (1990-2014): Clubs, Fine and Performing Arts, Special Events, and Sports
A Supplement to the Memoir (covering Celebration Events) will be produced following the Centennial.
All Registrants (but not Guests) will receive one copy of the Magee Secondary 2014 Centennial Memoir / Supplement which is included with their Ticket (Passport). Guests and others may purchase the Memoir separately at the Magee Open House on May 24th.
The Memoir will be available for pickup at the Magee Open House on May 24th.
Selected Acknowledgements and Memoir Summaries
Many thanks to John Macdonald and his wife, Brenda (née Timleck, Magee '71), for researching and writing the following summaries "Magee Secondary's Early History", "Hugh Magee Family History", and "Magee's Kerrisdale".
Brenda is a great great granddaughter of Hugh Magee. Her father, Gerry Timleck, operated the Magee Pharmacy at 49th and West Boulevard from 1965 to 1985.
John graduated from Sentinal in West Vancouver in 1965 and retired a few years ago after 37 years with BC Hydro. John also contributed an article on Hugh Magee to Chuck Davis' website, "The History of Metropolitan Vancouver" (http://www.vancouverhistory.ca/chronology6.htm).
Many thanks, also, to Eric Schieman (Retired), who was Principal at Magee Secondary from 1995 to 2001. His recollections of the demolition of the old school and the relocation, construction and completion of the new Magee on July 1, 2000 are recorded in his summary "Millenium Magee". In the words of PAC 2001:
"Eric provided energetic leadership and guidance during the demanding years of building, and will always be remembered as our inaugural Principal. His enthusiastic support throughout the building process will not be forgotten".
(Click to open or close individual Histories ... scroll down)
Magee Secondary's Early History
Magee Secondary had its beginnings in Eburne (now Marpole), two years before the original building on 49th Avenue was completed in 1914. In August 1912, Eburne Superior School was chartered for eight Point Grey students who had passed their high school entrance examinations. The students were taught that year by Principal Angus M. McDonald in an upstairs classroom of a four room wooden building at 67th and Cartier.
In April 1913 the Point Grey Board of School Trustees approved “the erection of the Magee School on Block 10 at Magee Station.” In August the school trustees renamed the school as Point Grey High School and appointed Mr. Allan Bowles as principal at a salary of $190 per month. In September, the original high school class was joined by twenty three new students entering their first year of high school. The class moved onto the Magee Road (49th Ave. & Maple) school site, while construction of the new building was underway. They occupied one of two completed rooms. The other room was used by Magee Public School elementary students. In April 1914, eight classrooms had been completed on the east side of the new building. It was located where the parking is now in front of the new Magee Secondary. The high school moved into the upper floor and lower floor was used by Magee Public elementary school students.
World War I began in early August 1914. Patriotism was at a high level and many thought of themselves as British first, Canadians second. When the new school building was officially opened on August 29, 1914, it was named after King George V in a rousing patriotic address by the Minister of Education. The City of Vancouver also named a new High School after King George V earlier in the same week. The new school at Magee served all of Point Grey, including Eburne (MarpoIe), Shaughnessy, and Dunbar.
During the world wide Influenza Epidemic, in the last three months of 1918, Magee was closed for several weeks and converted into a temporary hospital to accommodate the sick. At the end of the epidemic, the school’s student population grew to 183. In February 1920, four additional rooms in the west wing of the Magee school building were opened. A new gym was erected in 1921 and that fall the student population had increased to 237. The east wing of the school was completed in 1922. In 1924 there were 400 high school students attending Magee.
The school’s first annual, The Annual Review: King George V. (Magee) High School, was printed in 1924 for the 10th Anniversary of the school building on Magee Road. The sharing of the building with elementary students continued until January 9, 1925, when Magee Public (Maple Grove) School was opened. Although the high school building completed on the Magee site in 1914 had officially been named King George V, parents, students, staff, and school trustees continued to call it “Magee” after Hugh Magee, an early pioneer farmer who had lived in the area and built Magee Road (49th Avenue). The name “Magee High School” was finally made official by the School Board in May 1926, as part of its policy to use distinctive Canadian names for new schools.
By 1931 enrollment had increased to 888 and there were twenty-nine staff members. The average class sized was thirty seven students with the largest class having forty-six students. In September 1932, Magee Public School was renamed “Maple Grove” as part of recommendations to avoid confusion with school names. At the start of the 1963 school year, the high school’s name changed from Magee High School to Magee Secondary School. A new addition consisting of three new classrooms, a new gym, and various remodeled classrooms was officially opened in 1960. In the audience were three former Magee principals including Mr. Allan Bowles, the first principal of Magee. The 1998-99 school year was the last time students occupied the old Magee school building before it was demolished to allow for the completion of the present school building finished in 2000.
Photo Credits: CVA (City of Vancouver Archives), VPL (Vancouver Public Library)
Magee Family History
Hugh Magee was born June 4th, 1826 in Enniskillen, County Fermanagh, Ireland (now Northern Ireland). He came to Canada in 1843 when he was 17 years old, and settled in Upper Canada (Ontario) where he met his wife, Isabella Crawford, at a barn raising near Brampton. They were married in 1850 when Hugh was 24 and Isabella was 16 or 17 years old.
It was probably 1857 or 1858 when Hugh, Isabella, and their three young children left their farm in Upper Canada and travelled to New York City in preparation for their month long journey to San Francisco. They went by ship to Panama, crossed the isthmus by the newly completed railway, and then went by ship up the Pacific coast to San Francisco. In 1860 the family headed north by boat to Victoria, then to New Westminster. The Magees were among the first families of European descent to settle on the Burrard Peninsula. In 1861 Hugh pre-empted 240 acres of mostly cranberry marsh close to New Westminster where he established a farm and kept several cows.
In April 1867, Magee took over a claim of 191 acres on the flats at North Arm on the Fraser River in the area now known as Southlands in Vancouver. Hugh put the family home on a barge, floated it down the Fraser River and landed it at the foot of today’s Blenheim Street. The home was named Spruce Grove, after the stand of spruce trees around it. Ten years later, high water forced Magee to move the house across the flood plain and up the slope to what later became 3250 West 48th Avenue, between Blenheim and Balaclava. The original building was added onto several times. It was demolished in 1959.
Magee’s land included Celtic Island at the foot of today’s Blenheim Street and is now bounded on the west by Carrington, on the north by 49th Avenue, on the east by Carnarvon Street and on the south by the North Arm of the Fraser River. After the land was subdivided in the 1900s, it became known as Blenheim Flats, (now Southlands). In 1873 Magee purchased an additional 160 acres (District Lot 321) on the high ground directly to the north, now bounded by 49th Avenue, 41st Avenue, Blenheim St. and Macdonald St. Today this area includes Crofton House School, Kerrisdale Annex, and Malkin Park.
Isabella and Hugh Magee had fifteen children: seven sons and eight daughters, over the 28 years between 1852 and 1880 (about one birth every two years). Two daughters died in infancy. The Magee children were first schooled by a teacher living on the McCleery farm. Later they rowed to a school built across the river on Sea Island. Two of the Magee’s daughters were in the first class of Vancouver High School at Dunsmuir & Cambie in 1890.
In the 1880s Hugh Magee cleared a new road west from his farm, through the forest and to what is now Granville Street. It was known as Magee Road until it was renamed 49th Avenue. In 1902 the only stop on the railway line between Vancouver and Eburne (Marpole) was Magee Station at what is now 49th and West Boulevard. Hugh Magee died March 9th, 1909 at the age of 83. He left an estate valued at more than $3 million in today’s dollars. The complicated wording of the will resulted in family members initiating court actions and appealing legal judgments a number of times over next fifty years, until the distribution of the remaining estate was finally settled in 1961.
Hugh Magee’s great grandson Gerald (Gerry) Timleck, completed Senior Matriculation at Magee High School in 1940. He operated Magee Pharmacy next to Magee Grocery at the corner of 49th and West Boulevard between 1965 and 1985. His three daughters are also graduates of Magee: Marilyn in 1968, Brenda in 1971, and Dawn in 1978. Great granddaughter Valerie (Chambers) Timleck graduated from Magee in 1940. Four children of Hugh Magee’s granddaughter Josephine (McKibbin) Chataway also graduated from Magee: Patricia (Pat) in 1959, Elizabeth (Mikie) in 1960, Robert (Bob) in 1964, and Peter in 1965. Keith Magee, Great Grandson of Hugh Magee and Grandson of Hugh Crawford Magee, was the first "Magee" to graduate from Magee Secondary in 1973.
Source: Macdonald, John. The Family of Hugh Magee & Isabella Crawford, 2012.
Magee's Kerrisdale
Generations of Magee students have enjoyed time spent with friends along the streets of Kerrisdale Village. The area was just starting to develop when Magee High School opened in 1914. There were only a few automobiles on the roads in Vancouver and most people used the streetcar and interurban lines for transportation. The name Kerrisdale was adapted from “Kerrysdale” in Scotland after Mrs. William McKinnon was asked to name the new interurban station established at Wilson Road and West Boulevard in 1905.
In 1934 former Point Grey Reeve W. H. Lambke described his memories of early Kerrisdale to Vancouver archivist Major J.S. Matthews:
"I went to live at Kerrisdale, or rather Wilson Road, now West 41st Avenue, in 1911. At the time the forest grew on all sides. The Canadian Pacific Railway had, in 1904, completed the steam railway line to Steveston via Eburne, now Marpole, and was running a daily train on a single track through a slit in the forest. The Wilson Road was opened up, just a trail of mud in winter and of dust in summer. All around was a wilderness of forest with an occasional bit of clearing with stumps and brush.
The first resident at Kerrisdale must have been a Mr. Bell. He had about half an acre of land on the southwest corner of West 41st Avenue and West Boulevard. When he applied for a post office, we thought it was a queer thing to do, for at that time there were not more than half a dozen settlers within a mile or two miles; anyway, the post office was established. At that time I had seen bears ambling across the Wilson Road. It was from such a humble beginning that a splendid little business settlement at Kerrisdale, now brilliantly lit at night with electric and neon signs, paved roads, and a splendid street car service, originated."
In 1989 Barbara Moodie shared some of her 1948-1950 memories of Kerrisdale in the Magee 75th Anniversary book:
"We all owned bikes - but preferred walking to school with friends. The "Tram" which ran along the Arbutus Corridor was a fast and scenic alternative. Streetcars #6 and #7 rain along 41st Avenue to downtown and gas buses travelled from 41st & Granville to Marpole.
The Annual Skating Party at the new Kerrisdale Arena was always well attended. The bowling alley, now a Royal Lepage office [Salvation Army Thrift Store] on West 41st was a popular spot on Friday nights. We “hung out” over a “small coke” at the Jolly Roger and the Avenue Grill where, until a couple of years ago, the table-side individual Juke boxes were still in operation.
The Kerrisdale Theatre - now S. Lampman’s [Nestings Kids], and Moore’s Bakery - always had first rate movies. This was when we saw Cary Grant in “Lavender and Old Lace,” Sonia Henie in “Sun Valley Serenade,” Bing Crosby in “White Christmas,” and Danny Kaye in the “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” to name few favorites."
Photo Credit: CVA (City of Vancouver Archives).
Millenium Magee
Between 1997 and 2000, Magee students and staff watched as construction started on a new Magee Secondary School, then prepared for the demolition of their old school building, moved into the partially completed new school, and finally saw the completion of their new Magee. The official ground breaking for the new Magee with a capacity of 1200 students was celebrated on December 18th, 1997.
Since the footprint of the new school overlapped the foundation of the old building, the construction had to be done in two phases. Phase One started in early October of 1997 and lasted until July of 1999. Before the end of the last year in the old building (1998-1999), everything in it had to be tagged, sorted, classified, labeled, and ready for moving, then unpacked and reorganized in a new and unfamiliar, partially completed building.
Magee’s Open House held in early June of 1999 was also fondly referred to as the Magee Wake. This was a final goodbye to the old school, the last opportunity for alumni, parents, friends of Magee, and former teachers and administrators to walk through the school, meet old friends and share past memories. The event became a fund raiser for the new auditorium, with items not appropriate for the new school being auctioned off to the hundreds who came to catch a last glimpse of the old hallways, exchange stories, and to witness the end of a proud 85 year old heritage school building. The school then closed its doors to the public forever and waited for demolition.
The move into the completed first phase of the new school continued throughout the summer months of 1999. Since this was only a partially completed building without art, band, music, and drama rooms and without an auditorium, considerable planning and adjustments were necessary to accommodate 1080 students in a complete course of studies. While the big move was taking place, the old gymnasium and cafeteria were demolished so that footings for the Second Phase could be poured. Final demolition of the old building did not start until the middle of September 1999, when students were already in session in the first phase of the new school.
The ceremonies for the Graduating Class of 2000, the first in the 21st Century, were held in the new gymnasium, followed by the traditional Dry Grad activities in the new atrium. The entire ceremony and the additional all night celebrations in the new school atrium were a fabulous success. After the school year ended, the first public opening of the now totally completed Magee took place on Canada Day, July 1st, 2000 with an Alumni Dinner-Dance Fundraiser attended by about 500 guests, parents, former teachers and former administrators.
The Fine and Performing Arts Wing was completed near the end of July 2000. The newly completed school was often referred to by students and parents as their Millennium Magee. September, 2000 marked the Phase Two opening of the completed school. Students entered the new school in awe of the appealing architecture, the air conditioning, the clean new look and the natural light streaming into the atrium from the glass ceiling and rounded glass stairwells. They stared at the green house suspended on the third floor near the ceiling, the beautiful circular library, the grand auditorium-theatre, the video monitors, five new computer labs, the interior message board and their two new gymnasiums with glass backboards. They were delighted to find each of their bright classrooms filled with new individual student desks and chairs, a class computer, a whiteboard, and an overhead projector. The new Magee was officially opened October 6th, 2000,
Source: The Magee Replacement School History, Eric Schieman, 2012.
Photo Credits: ES (Eric Schieman), JM (John Macdonald)
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