Helen
Dawe and the Helen Dawe Collection
Helen
Isabel Dawe, 1914-1983, was born and brought up in Vancouver with
summer holidays spent at her mother's home in Sechelt. She was the
daughter of Captain Sam Dawe and his wife Ada who had
come to Sechelt
as an infant in 1894 with her parents, Thomas John and Sarah Cook.
Helen
graduated from the University of British Columbia in 1935
with a Bachelor
of Arts, a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Toronto in
1937, a Bachelor of Library Studies in 1947 and in 1949, a Diploma
in Agricultural, Poultry Husbandry, both from UBC.
Early
in WWII she joined the Royal Canadian Navy serving in
London, England
as a coder at Canadian Naval Headquarters with the rank
of Chief Petty
Officer. In 1950 during the Korean War she joined the American Air
Force and was librarian at George Air Force Base in
California. Returning
to Canada, she worked at the Victoria Provincial Library and then
became head of the acquisitions department at the Vancouver Public
Library until 1965 when she moved to live permanently in Sechelt.
She
spent the next eighteen years collecting documents,
photographs, films
and tapes, maps and charts, government (both local and provincial)
records, individual's reminiscences and organizations'
official records,
books and local newspapers -- anything and everything relevant to
the history of Sechelt and the Sunshine Coast. The majority of the
descriptions that accompany the photographs in this collection were
written by her.
While
amassing her collection she found time to serve on
Sechelt's Intermediate
Care Society's Committee, be a Director of the Sechelt
Marsh Protection
Society, worked on the parks committee responsible for Kinnikinick
Park and be a member of the Sechelt Branch of St. Mary's Hospital
Auxiliary. She was a tireless advocate for Sechelt, rarely missing
a Sechelt Council meeting where she quietly reminded the Council of
the need to preserve the local environment and its
history.
Copyright
© The Sechelt Community Archives
