| Number 15 | June 1, 2001 |
"A POSITIVE AND TOTALLY OPTIMISTIC PERSON"
That's a reference to Jessie Norton Beck, (1.4.3A.2A.1.) and is from a story about her in a senior's publication on Prince Edward Island. The glowing tribute was written by Hilary Prince and is the lead story in the May edition of "Voice for Island Seniors" - a publication of the P.E.I. Senior Citizens Federation.
The story reviews the many highlights of Jessie's long, successful life. She was born and grew up in Brudenell, attended Georgetown High School and then Prince of Wales College. Jessie trained at the Toronto General Hospital School of Nursing for three years and then studied psychology and chemistry at the University of Toronto, before returning to PEI and a nursing career. In September, 1935, she married Preston Beck and they made their home in Charlottetown, where their five children were born and grew up.
Another achievement was in the field of music. The article details how Jessie and her friend, Nadine Archibald, founded the P.E.I. Music Festival in 1946, an event that is still going strong today. At first Jessie raised money to sponsor the festival by soliciting funds from local business people in Charlottetown. The popularity of the festival grew and it soon attracted entrants from all parts of the Island.
The story also refers to the night during the Second World War when a bomber on a training flight dropped its payload by mistake in the Beck's backyard. (We told that story in the October, 2000, edition of the Beck Bulletin.)
Jesse and Preston were very active in the Church of Christ, at first as members of Central Christian Church. In 1966 they played a leading role in establishing the Church of Christ in the Sherwood area of Charlottetown.
Jesse is also well known as a writer and has written extensively on Island history and the history of the Church of Christ. The article says her latest work, still in progress, is a History of Churches of Christ/Christian Churches on Prince Edward Island since 1810.
Her subject may be history, but her writing method is futuristic. She has a computer equipped with voice recognition software so she can dictate her work and the computer writes out her words. Not bad for a woman who will be 90 in the fall!
SPORTS FUND RAISER PLANNED
Brad Richards and Thatcher Bell will lead a group of sports stars involved in a weekend of fund raising activities on PEI at the end of June. The Brad Richards/Andrews Hockey Celebrity Sports Weekend is scheduled for June 29 and 30th. Money raised will go to help provide equipment and opportunity for young Islanders who otherwise might not be able to afford to participate in organized sports. The announcement of the event was made in mid-May while Brad was in Europe as part of the Canadian entry in the World Hockey Championship. He was the top scorer on the Tampa Bay Lighting this year and is a leading contender for the rookie of the year award in the National Hockey League.
As a member of the 2000 Memorial Cup champion Rimouski Oceanic and a draft pick of the Vancouver Canucks, Thatcher (1.4.6.5,3.6,3) knows he's been fortunate. "It's sad for me to see kids that don't have the chance that I had in hockey or other sports for that matter," Thatcher said following a news conference to announce details of the three-event weekend.
"To be able to do everything I can to help the cause is great. It just feels good helping raise some funds for kids who didn't have the chance, whether because of a disability or money."
Plans include a celebrity hockey game at Slemon Park in Summerside on June 29, followed by a golf tournament at Dundarave Golf Club at Roseneath and a celebrity dinner at the Northumberland Arena in Murray River on June 30.
The hockey game will feature pro, major junior, university, U.S., and Canadian prep school players. Thirty-six teams will be entered in the golf tournament and entries are being accepted at $200 a player or $600 a three-member team. The celebrity dinner, which also includes a silent auction, will feature many celebrity sports figures yet to be named. Money raised will go to Camp Gencheff in Keppoch and the Northumberland Arena.
Thatcher, a native of Guernsey Cove, said its great to be able to help a facility where he, among others, got his start in hockey. He pointed out that the Northumberland Arena is where his hockey dream started and its nice to be able to give something back to help create that dream for other kids in the community.
Despite missing time this season with the Oceanic because of injuries, Thatcher managed to get back into action in time for the playoffs. Rimouski was eliminated after the second round, but Thatcher was one of the top producers on his team, recording 6 goals and seven assists in 11 games.
RORY MOVES ON
After five years in Junior Hockey, time has run out for Rory Beck.(1.4.3B.7.3.2.2) The star right-winger for the Summerside Western Capitals will be 21 this fall and no longer eligible for the Junior ranks. The Charlottetown native started his Junior career with the Charlottetown Abbies in 1995 and was traded to Summerside in 1997. Through hard work and regular practice he has improved steadily and reached a career-high of 93 points this year, leading the Caps to victory in their division before they lost the Maritime Junior A Hockey League final to the Antigonish Bulldogs.
"This would be a lot tougher if this was my last game of competitive hockey. Now I know I have a place to play next year," Rory told Don Morrison of The Guardian. He will join the UPEI Panthers of the Atlantic University Hockey Conference in the fall.
Rory started in his own backyard, playing pickup games on a homemade ice surface. "We're pretty fortunate to grow up with the rink in the backyard." He said it provided a lot of enjoyment for him and his brother, Darcy, 14, and other kids in the area.
Rory feels that the rink was a real advantage. "A lot of kids don't get a chance to get on the ice too much," he said in an interview with Jason Simmonds of the Summerside Journal-Pioneer. "If you're playing minor hockey you may be on the ice once or twice a week for a practice and a couple of games, whereas I could go out there for four or five hours any time I felt like it. "It certainly improved my play-making .. in the end it really helps you out for sure."
Rory has a problem with asthma and uses his puffer a lot between shifts on the ice and relies on a Maxi-Mist machine before the game and between periods.
Rory received a lot of support from his family, who turned up in the stands regularly. "My father, my mother, my sister (Natalie, 24) and my grandparents come up to a lot of the games and we have a pretty tight family all the way out," he said. "It's kind of nice to see them come out and it certainly gives you that extra motivation when you see they've made the hour trip (from Charlottetown) to see you . . ."
His coach, Ron Carragher, has high praise for Rory's abilities both on and off the ice. And he has no doubt that Rory will easily make the move to university hockey. "He knows he is going to have to continually work on his skating, but he has the head to play at the university level," said Carragher. "There's no question he will do well there and surprise a lot of people."
FORMER STAR HONOURED
The new University of Prince Edward Island Sports Hall of Fame is now open and Dr. Mac Beck is among the first inductees. Mac was an outstanding athlete at Prince of Wales College in the early 1940s, starring in basketball, hockey, rugby and track and field. As one of only three defencemen on the PWC hockey team, he would log 40 minutes of ice time a game.
At the inaugural dinner in early April Mac told Dave Stewart of The Guardian what those hockey games were like. Mac said, "We played in the old Charlottetown Forum back in the days when everybody smoked. The air, you could hardly see through it, let alone breathe it playing 40 minutes a game."
Despite his athletic record, Mac said he was surprised to be chosen as one of the first inductees.
"It's just a marvellous feeling,'' he said. "I heard a hall of fame was coming but I never thought of myself as being in that category.''
Mac also contributed to the Hall of Fame by donating his scrapbooks. While attending PWC, he kept careful records, including stories and pictures of the teams and athletes of the day. In fact he had five books filled with accounts of the sporting events of that time, and now they are preserved in the Hall of Fame.
MEMORIAL BEING PREPARED
A book of remembrance is planned in honour of the soldiers of the North Nova Scotia Highlanders Regiment who died during the Second World War. The regiment lost 497 men in battle in Europe. Many Prince Edward Islanders served in the North Novas, and more than 60 Islanders died in action. The authors of the book are hoping to locate photographs of the men to include in the book.
Among the casualties was Henry M. Brooks (1.3,1,3.3) of White Sands. According to information in the Canadian Virtual War Memorial on the internet, Henry died July 25, 1944 in France. He was 48. He is buried in the Bretteville-Sur-Laize Canadian War Cemetery in Calvados, France. The cemetery is located about 16 kilometres south of Caen and just north of the village of Cintheaux. Buried there are those who died during the later stages of the battle of Normandy, the capture of Caen and the thrust southwards (led initially by the 4th Canadian and 1st Polish Armoured Divisions), to close the Falaise Gap, and thus seal off the German divisions fighting desperately to escape being trapped west of the Seine.
Any photographs submitted should be directed to Chief Warrant Officer Ray Coulson (Rtd), The Armory, 36 Acadia Street, Amherst, N.S., B4H 3L6.
DEATHS
MACKENZIE, Chester C. The death occurred at the Kings County Memorial Hospital, Montague, on Saturday, May 26, 2001, of Chester MacKenzie of Beach Point in his 90th year. He was the husband of Ada Baker(1.4.1,9,3,). He is survived by children Bessie (Earle) Richards, Harold (Adeline), Nellie (Cyril) Rattray, Joyce Gordon, William (Ida), James and Guy (Gail); 12 grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren. A private family service was held on May 28 from the Southern Kings and Queens Funeral Home in Murray River, with interment in the Murray Harbour Cemetery.
BIOGRAPHY
James Stewart Maxwell (1.10B.7.4.2,) was born May 10,1924, in New Westminster, British Columbia. - the son of Irish immigrants. His father was a heavy duty carpenter at the big shipbuilding company, Harland and Wolfe in Belfast. He worked on large construction sites on both coasts of North America and eventually joined the CNR as a carman building boxcars and passenger cars in British Columbia. His mother was a school teacher, specializing in music.
James grew up in Burnaby, a suburb of New Westminster, and attended school there. When he was 14 he received an injury that had a great bearing on his future. A school carnival was being held to raise funds, and James was helping to supervise the shooting gallery. During a break in the action a five-year-old boy picked up one of the air cadet rifles, loaded with a .22 calibre "cap," pointed it at James and pulled the trigger. The pellet lodged behind his eye and the doctors were unable to save the eye.
This meant that he was no longer able to take part in contact sports. He had dreamed of being a railroad machinist at the CNR but couldn't qualify for that either. And he wasn't able to serve in the armed forces because of the vision problem.
James was always interested in food processing and during high school worked part time at a local dairy, washing milk bottles and worked his way up into the industry from there.
He attended the University of British Columbia in Vancouver where he studied agriculture. He was able to finance his university education with a variety of jobs in the dairy field. He also worked in many locations throughout the province, gaining experience in all aspects of the dairy processing industry.
James graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Agriculture with a speciality in Dairy Bacteriology. Shortly after that he got a job operating a pasteurizing plant for Kamloops United Dairy. It was there that he met Marion Beck through a Young People's Group in the United Church. A couple of years later they were married and moved to Victoria on Vancouver Island, where they made their home. They had three children, two girls and a boy.
James joined Island Farms Dairies Co-op in May of 1952 and stayed there until he retired in 1988.
He learned carpentry from his father and put that skill to work to build furniture for their home in the early years of their marriage. He also took up gardening and made the most of a larger than normal backyard to grow vegetables for home consumption. Other hobbies included stamp collecting, salmon fishing, photography, and small engine repair.
In 1988 James underwent heart bypass surgery and retired after 36 years with the dairy in Victoria. He developed more health problems in the winter of 2001 and had open heart surgery again for repairs to a valve and to the earlier by-pass. He is on the road to recovery now.
UPCOMING REUNIONS
The Jordan Family plans a reunion next month in the Northumberland Arena in Murray River. It runs from from July 13 through the 15th. The event starts Friday evening with a variety concert. On Saturday the emphasis will be on genealogical information, followed by a lobster supper and entertainment. The event ends on Sunday with brunch followed by a memorial service.
The Becks and Jordans have been connected since Martin Luther Jordan and Ada Margaret Beck (1.4.9,) married in 1884.
More information on the reunion can be found on the Jorden/Jordan family website at:
http://www.jordanjorden.50megs.com
A Beck, MacLean and Mashon family reunion will be held in western Canada this summer. This is a separate branch of the Beck family who trace their roots back to Ireland by way of the United States. The reunion will be held at the Handhills Lake Club in Alberta on Saturday, June 30, and Sunday, July 1. The organizers have planned an action-packed two-day agenda featuring events for the entire family. Anyone living in that area, or who happens to be travelling that way at that time should find the reunion interesting.
BOOKS STILL AVAILABLE
While the latest version of the Beck listings is sold out, there are still copies of the 1983 book, The Descendants of Vere Beck. This is the professionally printed and bound volume and it includes generations 1 to 6 and some of generation 7.
It's more than adequate for people interested in tracing their line back to Vere and Elizabeth Beck, or for browsing through the early generations of the family. If you're interested you can get a copy from:
Dr. Mac Beck,
5 West Street,
Charlottetown,
PEI.
C1A 3S3.
Mac's phone number is 902-894-3544 and the price is $10.00.
The Vere Beck Family Home Page
We're always looking for news of Beck family members. If you know of any significant events drop me a line with the information. imunn@accesswave.ca
imunn@accesswave.ca