Elida Peers | Contributed
The Sooke Community Association is looking at organizing a community picnic at Fred Milne Field in August. This reminds us of the many community picnics that have been part of our history.
If there’s a salmon barbecue, you can be sure there is a big stack of chopped alder ready to feed the fire pits that have been built to hold the salmon racks. In this 1993 photo, my husband Jim Peers (Left) was obviously in the middle of feeding the firepits when friends from both far and near joined him.
When we had reunions decades ago, they were nearly always held at the Flats, and almost any occasion gave us an “old home week.” No event was more important than the annual All Sooke Day, which was part of our culture from 1934 to 2002.
Next to my husband is Lew Dempsey, back to visit Sooke for the 1993 opening of the new RCMP detachment on Church Road, with Sgt. Wayne Watson.
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When Lew arrived in Sooke in 1961, he was a newly minted RCMP officer, having been one of the last recruits into the B.C. Provincial Police, as in 1958, the BCPP made the switch and was absorbed into the RCMP.
Lew and his wife Ioline (in front) raised their two sons in Sooke. When the Dempseys left in 1967, the detachment had grown to three, and Lew was a sergeant. Much later, he retired as an inspector in Nelson.
On the right side of Lew is Evelyn (Linell) Rhode, whose mum, Mae Linell, is beside her. From the 1950s through the next half century, everyone in Sooke knew Mae Linell. If you were a Cub Scout leader for forty years, treasurer of Sooke Community Association, looking after hall bookings for decades, a director of Sooke Region Historical Society for a dozen years, involved in a myriad of fund-raising projects, in those days, everyone knew you. Small wonder that the Linell son Karl has spent much of his life working for Sooke Community Association.
Long before there was a municipality here and no local government, the Sooke Community Association was the leading organization, followed by the Sooke-Jordan River Chamber of Commerce. Bureaucracy of any kind was at a minimum.
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Elida Peers is the historian of the Sooke Region Museum. Email historian@sookeregionmuseum.com.
editor@sookenewsmirror.com
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