Interview with Gwen Ellis
https://search.bvmuseum.org/link/descriptions12244
- Date Range
- August 1 1997
- Collection
- BVM Oral History collection
- Description Level
- File
- GMD
- sound recording
- electronic record
- Scope and Content
- Interview with Gwen Ellis (nee Young), recorded on August 1st 1997 at her home in Smithers by Misty Jorgen. Includes raw and edited .WAV files, an .MP3 access file, and a .pdf release form.
- Collection
- BVM Oral History collection
- Description Level
- File
- Creator
- Misty Jorgen
- Fonds No.
- C5
- Item No.
- 2021.21.37
- Accession No.
- 2021.21
- Physical Description
- 1.16 GB of digital records
- Date Range
- August 1 1997
- History / Biographical
- Gwen Young was born in Oxfordshire, England in 1929 and married Ernest Ellis in 1947. Shortly afterwards the couple immigrated to the Bulkley Valley and began farming near Telkwa. Ellis served as the first female postal carrier in the Telkwa area and was highly involved with the Quick Women’s Institute. Her husband worked for the Bulkley Valley Coal Mine, ran a coal delivery business, and helped build roads.
- Scope and Content
- Interview with Gwen Ellis (nee Young), recorded on August 1st 1997 at her home in Smithers by Misty Jorgen. Includes raw and edited .WAV files, an .MP3 access file, and a .pdf release form.
- Type of Record
- Archival Description
Audio Tracks
Interview with Gwen Ellis - August 1, 1997
Interview with Gwen Ellis - August 1, 1997
https://search.bvmuseum.org/media/Digital%20Fonds%20and%20Collections/C5%20BVM%20Oral%20History%20collection/2021.21.37_Ellis,%20Gwen/Ellis,%20Gwen%201997_08_01.ACCESS.mp3
Why Ellis wanted to move to Canada and the process it took to get here.
Canada; CNR Settlement Plan; deportation; England; farm; food; land; Oxfordshire; World War II
Canada; immigration
What life was like living on a farm after England and how they made due.
British Columbia; Bulkley Valley; cabin; cattle; chickens; children; clearing land; cold; farm; house; meat; New York; picket farm; Poland; Polish; pregnant; ship; Smithers; war rations; winter
children; farm; food
Old and new ways of doing things.
bathroom; code; electricity; Hungry Hill; party line; warmth; water
modernization
Working a dairy farm and then switching over to beef for more money.
beef; can; cream; money; pigs; potatoes; river; Telkwa
animals; dairy; farm
Selling and grading potatoes on the farm for many years.
Boychuck; breaking land; cellar; Feed Store; grading; monopoly; Prince George; September; sizing; winter
farm; potatoes
What life was like working in a coal mine and having explosives at home.
accident; Bulkley Valley District Hospital; explosion; fire boss; home; mine; Shell Oil; undergrown
accident; fire; mining
Helping make Smithers' roads and highways.
bush camp; Hungry Hill; laborer; trail
roads; Smithers
What it was like to have to compete for jobs with the inflow of immigrants in the 50's.
cheap labor; Dutch; German; Holland; mill; night shift; Sundays
competition; jobs
What it was like getting a job as a postal worker and working for several years and the only female in that field.
box; Interior News; mail; Quick; station wagon; Telkwa; traveling post office
postal work
What the old Telkwa school used to look like and what it was like when her children went to school there.
teacher; Telkwa School
education