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Before I mention the Enderby Lions
Club, I'd like to give a little bit of background into Lions International. As you know,
or may not know, we belong to the International Association of Lions Clubs which is a
worldwide organization. Lions International has a million and a half members in 182
countries, was started in 1917 by Melvin Jones, and didn't take too many years to become
international. Some of the clubs in Canada now have been together 70 years. The Enderby
club has been going for 50 years.
In about 1946 or '47 the Lions International delegated a group of men to go around to organize clubs all over North America. They came to Vernon first and organized Vernon in 1945; then in 1947 they organized clubs in Lumby, Armstrong and Enderby. The Armstrong club folded shortly afterward, but about 10 years ago, the Armstrong Club was re-chartered.
In 1947, the Enderby sponsor club was Vernon. They met in the basement of the Enderby Hotel, and received a Charter there on the 22 of September. We had a big social evening up at the Drill Hall on November the 3rd. It was quite a gala event and a lot of trouble was taken even to make the program.
The first president was Alvin Woods, and there were 28 charter members. The Secretary was Johnny Pow, the barber here at the time. The Treasurer was Pat Farmer. For the night they had at the Drill Hall, Reverend C.G. MacKenzie said the blessing. There was a welcome by Mayor H. Logan. The entertainment that night was an acrobatic display by Tena Skelly. That's when she was a mere tyke. We'd never ask her to do it over again. There was also a vocal duet by Shirley McAmmond and Marion Pritchard and a military tap dance by Hedley Stevenson; and, of course, dancing afterward to the Swingsters.
In 1947, the Enderby Hotel was new, and the meetings were held in a room in the basement until 1955. About that time, they got a new cook in the kitchen and John Pritchard decided that he was going to donate moose for the supper. When it came out on the plate with the blood running that was the end of our meetings there. As you know, we are a Supper Club, we meet twice a month for dinner and we went from the Hotel over to the Dew Drop Cafe which was Litzenburger's. We were not there that long, but then we had somewhere between 25 and 30 years with the Anglican Church women in the Parish Hall. We were served excellent meals, and it was a good place to meet. Now, of course, the last few years we've met at the Legion.
We soon found out we needed money, and our first fund raiser was a raffle of a brand new 1948 Dodge Sedan car, probably worth around 15 or 17 hundred dollars. Anyway, the winner was Lawrence Finnan, who I don't think ever got behind the wheel of it because someone bought it before he...but it was just as well too.
1948 and 49 was the start of the Queen Contest in Enderby by the Lions Club. Mary Field of Vernon was the first queen. At that time they picked 4 or 5 girls and gave them tickets to sell; the one who sold the most tickets was the queen.
In 1950, I think one of the biggest projects that the Enderby Lions Club has ever undertaken was the building of the Swimming Pool in Barnes Park. We decided that swimming in the river was too dangerous for kids and that half of them couldn't swim that well. So we undertook to build a swimming pool. It was a big job in those days. All the work was done by hand and the hole was dug by Harry Danforth who had a small bulldozer and pushed the top off and got down into the mud. And then the rest was dug with horses and Fresno slip scraper.
The cement of course was all mixed by cement mixers. As I remembered, I helped push the wheel barrow there, and I think there was a cement mixer in each corner and we had room to push the wheelbarrows. It was completed in 1953 and they had a big official opening. The Lions operated it until 1965.
One of the big jobs every year was the filters. At that time, the filter tanks at the north end of the change rooms filters had to have fresh sand in them every year. So, the only place we could get sand that was desirable was over the other side of Salmon Arm at Sandy Point Resort on the Indian Reserve. We borrowed a dump truck and a bunch of us went with shovels and shovelled it all into the truck. And then, of course, when we got up here, we had to shovel it up through a hole in the end. It was a huge job! The city took the pool over in '65 and in 1972, a major re-construction was done on it. It had a new liner and the filters were changed. The Lions Club donated a $5,000.00 cheque toward that, plus another $2,000.00.
Also, at about the same time, there was a need for a Health Centre in Enderby. So the Lions Club got busy and, I think, there were Government grants involved. But they did build a Health Centre. Eric Olson, who lives down here on Regent Street now, but at that time lived in Mara, was the head carpenter on it. That Health Unit lasted until they built the Red Basket. After that they closed it down and opened the one down here on Cliff Street. And also at the same time we went along with another club to help furnish a ward at the hospital.
Most of the money for all these things was raised at Sports Days: logging competitions, log rolling, and various similar activities. You will remember Dick Blackburn down there with the fog horn. Audrey Baird and Harry Danforth did most of the organizing for it. That kind of came to an end when Casmir Felix and Adrian Alexander got too old to roll logs. It came to the point when we had to pay people to come and do it and it just got so that we couldn't afford to do it. I don't remember what year it was, but one of those sports days they had a boxing card and Rob Dale's brothers were two of the contestants, Ken and Mel Dale, George Reiter, and Billy Edwards made up the card.
One of the staunch supporters of the Lions Club in Enderby was always Mrs. Towers. She and John Pritchard didn't always see eye to eye, but she was a good supporter of the club. One of the things she had was majorettes. She had quite a group of young girls that were interested in that. Pat Scott taught them. They went to parades all over and were quite popular.
In 1956, another big project came along: there was a need for an ambulance in Enderby. I don't know if you old timers in Enderby still have a ticket that got you a ride to the hospital for one dollar. The first ambulance was a '52 Chev van. John Pritchard bought it down at the coast and brought it up here. He fixed it up with a stretcher and all the rest inside. It was a little bit on the small side. I recall going up to Mabel Lake and picking up a gentleman up there who was about 7 feet tall, one of the Fleury's. We had to do a bit of folding to get him in there!
In 1966, we bought a new ambulance, a Chev from Fletcher in Armstrong. It was all volunteer driving, we didn't get any remuneration for it until later years. We still didn't get anything for trips to Enderby Hospital, but we did when we took a person to Vernon. Lots of times, we'd get called out at 1 or 2 in the morning and pick someone up from a car accident, take him to the hospital, and then have to go farther on to Vernon or Kelowna. You didn't get back until 7 or 8 in the morning so it interfered with work. We made trips all over the Okanagan but in 1973, the government took over the operation of it, and in 1975, they purchased the ambulance. That was the end of it for us.
Also, about 1960, Enderby had no street names, nor house numbers. So, Lions Club, under the direction of Des Holt, the Anglican minister at that time, decided that was a good project to start. So we purchased, I don't know how many, four-by-four posts for the project. The Lions Club painted them white and the same Pat Scott painted all the names on them. Some of them of course had to have names on all four sides so it took her quite a long time to paint all the names. Then they all had to be planted afterwards. I don't think there's any left now, they all rotted out. As to the house numbers, it was quite a job to organize it all before hand because it all had to be mapped out and a lot of work went in before we even started on the thing.
I think the '50's and '60's were the hard work days of the club, but there was a lot of fun, too. It's a little different now. You don't get the volunteer labour that we had in those days.
I don't want to pick any particular ones out here, but there's two men, I think, in the Club that really helped keep the Club together in years when it could have gone down too. There were times when it was down to about 12 members. The first name I'll mention here was a Charter member of the Club, Harry Danforth. His theory was: if the two-by-four was big enough, he'd spike another one onto it to make it that much stronger, and of course, it got that much heavier. The testimony of his work was the entry-way to Barnes Park. That was put up somewhere around about '56 or '57, and those timbers were still good when they took it down last year. That little sawmill across the way got them and made lumber out of them. And also, in about '66, the whole Danforth family came to Enderby and we had a memorial plaque put on the slide up at the park in memory of Harry. He was a quiet, kind, fellow, but he sure got guys out to working. He was a good leader.
The other one was John Pritchard who was the only member we had that was President eight times, and also his own Chairman. He was another man that, although he had his ways about things, was a good guy to keep the Club rolling. I don't know how many members he initiated into the Club, but a lot of us are still there. It was during his years, I think he had about three years in a row that he was President, that we won the Inspiration Award which was quite an honour. The whole Lions Club International is divided into districts and we belong to District 19 which is in British Columbia, Washington, and a little bit of Oregon. We're in Zone D1 with clubs from Revelstoke to Winfield. But this was for the District, I don't know how many clubs were involved, but it was quite an award at that time. It was mainly for the work done on the swimming pool and the Health Centre.
I think there are not too many old timers, or anybody else in Enderby for that matter, that has not been to one of our Pancake Breakfasts. We did not have the first one in Enderby and Moose (Don MacPherson, the former fire chief) is here so I have to tell you that the Fire Department had the first one in the Centennial Year of '67. But we have had them every year since. And also, I think for the past 20 years we have the Mother's Day Pancake Breakfast.
Some of you Armstrong people may have worked on the Kindale School. The Armstrong Kinsmen and the Enderby Lions Club were quite involved in that during the '60's, with walk-a-thons and things. I know we were out, when they had walk-a-thons with stops all around, with refreshments for the walkers. We contributed quite a lot to Kindale School and also we planted about 50 trees in Barnes Park, I think there's only about 6 left. Some of them died shortly after, I think it's too wet for them up there.
One of the big boosters and backers of the Lions Club was Baird Brothers. I went out to Bairds to get something to make the turn on a merry-go-round to go in Barnes Park. We thought we could make the rest of it ourselves. Ossie Baird said "Well, what do you want a truck hub for?" So after I explained to him what we were going to do, he said, "Well, don't get in too big a rush, I'm going down to the coast in a few days. Theres a guy who owes me some money and I think I can get a merry-go-round." About two weeks later I got a phone call from him to come out to the shop and pick up the merry-go-round!
Fundraising is harder now. I think, when I joined the Club, if you worked at something and made 150 or 200 dollars or whatever it was, it was pretty good money; now, of course, you need 2,000 dollars to do the same thing.
In later years, we turned to cutting cordwood to make money, and also, with John Pritchard's idea, we planted potatoes. Some of you probably remember buying a pail full of raffle tickets. And together with the Armstrong Lions Club and Hunters Range Snowmobile Association, we have raised somewhere in the neighborhood of $120,000 over the last 20 years with SnowArama. Those funds go to the Easter Seal Campaign and Timmy's Telethon, but also some of it is kept here. I don't know how many of you have been to Maz and Me's, but that was always a big fundraiser. But I think, this year, the participants are not available.
We've had some comical times. All of the clubs go on visitations to other clubs. In the early '60's, the Bank Manager at the time, T.K. Smith, decided the good thing to do would be to take a pig down to the Kelowna Club. So we bought a pig from a farmer. It was about 10 weeks old and weighed about 20 pounds. Of course, the pig didn't take too kindly to driving in a car like that...I won't say what the car was like by the time we got to Kelowna. We went there to the Royal Anne Hotel where the meeting was. We had the pig in a pen with handles on each end and we marched up the front steps. The door man says, "You're not coming in here with that." We argued with him for a while, and then, we drove around to the back alley and came in through the basement. We got the pig into the banquet room and turned it loose. They had a guest speaker from one of the airlines up on the podium that night talking about the airport that was just going into Kelowna. But the pig got the better of him.
The Enderby Lions Club, like all other Lions Clubs, contribute not only to the local things here but also to the Lions International Charities. The Lions C.A.R.E. which is an organization that helps needy countries: water, sewer, and this type of thing; as well, the L.C.I.F., they call it the Disaster Fund, and I think the nearest one here that I know of that they helped is the Edmonton tornado.
I would like to say that all this work that we do solely depends on the relations and generosity of the community. I think that the people of Enderby have always been good backers; like I said, it's getting harder and harder all the time to raise money and we have to come up with new ideas all the time. But I think of all the support of people now and we're very fortunate. I am proud to be a member of the Enderby Club.
Peter Roberts
Okanagan Historical Society, 1997
I joined in 1955. So that's 42 years ago now and on September 20, 1997 we held our 50 year celebration at the arena. There were 130 local and visiting Lions and guests that attended. Also to mark our anniversary, the club planted a commemorative tree in Belvidere Park and buried a concrete cairn with Lions newspaper clippings, pictures and memorabilia to be opened in 25 years.