Page 2 - Forest Grove Years 17 Feb

The Forest Grove Years 1945 -1956

e arrived in Forest Grove in Sep-
tember of 1945 when I was only
two years old but given a birthday
W ctober, I was for all practical
in O
purposes three. The memories I have of the
early years are hazy. These memories need to
be seen in the context of two time frames. The
first being before the loss of the Forest Grove
Store to fire in 1951. There was then an inter-
lude of approximately 2 1/2 years when we
lived in Medicine Hat. The second period be-
gins in 1953 when we returned to Forest
Grove. I cannot always make a clear distinc-
tion between the two periods of time when we
lived permanently in Forest Grove. There is,
however, an extensive photographic collection
and these pictures are of great assistance to
my failing memory.
This story must begin in West Vancouver or
more specifically in the West Bay area of that
municipality. One of the more important as-
pects of our West Vancouver home had been
its location next door to another young couple,
Bob and Madelene Parkin. I mentioned them in
my chapter on the West Vancouver years, but
they deserve further comment. Bob was a
great outdoors man, and it was not long be-
fore he and my father were taking hunting
trips into the interior of the province using
gasoline which had been hoarded in a drum
buried in Bob’s back yard. It was during one of
these trips that the two men decided that after
the war and they were released from war in-
dustry they would form a partnership and pur-
chase a rural property in the Cariboo. I have
no idea what my mother (or my maternal
grandmother) must have thought about this
idea, as I was much too young to be privy to
any of the discussion.

The White and Parkin Families ca. 1945 By any standards it was likely to be quite an
adventure. The only person with real experi-
ence in farming and livestock was my father. My mother was a talented musician with a
licentiateship in music from the University of Toronto as well as an Arts Degree from
UBC – not to mention a diploma in Social Work. Madelene was a city girl who had left
school on graduation and worked for the Hudson Bay Company retail outlet in down-
town Vancouver. Bob Parkin, however, was a man of many talents. He could turn his