Why my mother was born in Canada

After less than a year in Shanghai, Frederick and Lottie (my mother’s parents) were tempted to Canada in 1920 (see Dad’s account below). It did not go well, but they stuck it out for 4 years, finally leaving just after my mother was born in 1924.

No idea who these people are, but presumably this was taken in Happy Valley while the Bakers were struggling to make a living, and shows the general environment

A copy of my mother’s birth certificate, showing her born on August 1st 1924, at 473 Superior St, Victoria, British Columbia.

When I was at a conference in Vancouver in 2018 I took a ferry to Victoria on Vancouver Island, hired a bicycle and went up Happy Valley in an unsuccessful attempt to find the ranch. I did visit 473 Superior St, which was now a parking lot. But the house where she was born would have been similar to 487, which still exists. [Then I flew back in a seaplane, which was wonderful.]

They then sailed back across the Pacific to Shanghai.