Phone 382

BAZETT & VICKERS
LUMBER CO. LTD.

Retail Lumber and
Building Supplies

P.O. Box 36 DUNCAN, B.C.

WALDIE MOTORS LTD.

Buick, Pontiac G.M.C. Trucks
Dominion Tires Prest-O-Lite Batteries
Union Oil Products

Look for the “76”

Phone 600 DUNCAN, B.C.
E. M. WALDIE, Manager

KYLE'S TAXI

Cowichan’s Pioneer Transportation Service
TAXI - CHARTER BUS
PHONE 102
165 Station Street
DUNCAN -

Duncan Shoe Service

QUALITY SHOES AND REPAIRS
P.O. Box 1174

125 Kenneth Street

DUNCAN British Columbia

CITY SERVICE

BOB BERRY, Proprietor
“Duncan’s Largest and Best Equipped Garage”’

AUSTIN AND PACKARD
SALES AND SERVICE

Duncan, B.C.

Garner Bros. Construction Co.

GENERAL CONTRACTORS

HOME BUILDING AND ALTERATIONS
PAINTING AND PAPER-HANGING

Approved Roofing and Insulation Applicators
BULLDOZING—ROADS—LAND CLEARING
GRADING, ETC.

Phone 694, Duncan Night Calls: 91L2 or 470R1

DUNCAN

British Columbia

Page Twenty-four

Mother was horrified because I was danc-
ing and singing in variety theatres. I told
her that as soon as I had saved enough
money I would send for her. But it seemed
as though I could never save the money.
I was always helping someone else. Once I
had the money ready for mother, but there
was a young girl in our company who
needed hospital care. I took up a collection
for her and added mother’s travel money,
too. A reporter wrote my benevolent act
up in the paper. It was my first press
notice. But I had a hard time explaining
to mother.

Billy Jackson and Jack MacDonald of
the Savoy watched over me as though I
were their own child. I called Jack
“Guardy” because he was so strict with me.
The girls’ rooms were upstairs over the
theatre, and each night we were checked
to see that we were in our rooms on time.

My second press notice was for my
number at the Comique, which said that
I sang and danced with a French flair. My
pictures began appearing in print every-
where. And I became one of the first pin-up
girls of the Northwest.

The gold-rush was on, and everyone was
excited. I kept moving closer and closer to
the Klondike. I accepted an engagement to
play Bennett, a gold-‘mad town, where the
men outfitted themselves and built scows to
freight into the Yukon for gold. It was at
the end of the trainline—and life was keyed
high. Someone recently told me that he
spent a night in an old hotel in Bennett,
and there on the ceiling was my name,
“Katie Rockwell,” nailed in champagne
corks. It was a custom in those days.

FOLLOWED THE RUSH TO THE
KLONDIKE

I was wild to reach the gold country.
The Northwest Mounted stopped women
from going down the rapids to Whitehorse,
where we could head for Dawson. But I
went anyway, dressed in boy’s clothes—
down through the Whitehorse rapids, down
the boiling river.

Then I received word that the Savoy
theatrical company of one hundred seventy
people was being formed to go to Dawson.
I was asked to join the show.

We chartered a steamer and went into
Dawson. I shall never forget my first sight
of Dawson. Front street, facing the Yukon,
was a solid line of saloons, dance halls and
gambling houses. I wore hiking breeches—
a startling departure from the usual dress
of Dawson women. In those days women
never appeared in anything but skirts. But
I was young, and I laughed at raised eye-
brows.

I was wearing an engagement ring when
I arrived in Dawson. I planned some day
to marry Danny Allmen, who was a chap
in a minstrel show in New York. He
planned to join me in the Northwest.
“When we meet we'll part no more,” he
had written.

He came to the West Coast a few
months after I had left for the Yukon. He

wrote he would join me in Dawson, B
he suddenly became ill in Vancouver, h;
a cerebral hemorrhage, and died.

For several months I worked hard
partial partnership with Alex Pantages,
Greek immigrant with whom I had fal
in love. We made lots of money, and y
saved it. It was not uncommon for me |
take in $500 an evening in percentag
for drinks and dances. They were 9;
dollar each and the music stopped ofte
The waiters sold bottles of wine at fifte;
dollars and then removed the bottles wh:
they were half full. This kept the m
buying more wine. But men rich with go
dust did not care. All they asked was
forget their loneliness for an evening.

Alex Pantages and I laughed, danced a
worked hard during those months at ¢
Old Orpheum. We opened it together a:
it became the brightest spot north of ti
International boundary line. In the sprit
wed go picking poppies together on ¢!

GREENHAVEN

Lignt Lunches, Sandwiches
Or a Snack
The Best Food with the Best Service
Palm Ice Cream

Phone 375 DUNCAN, B. C.

COWICHAN
MERCHANTS

Ltd.
DEPARTMENT STORE

A Full Department Store
Service For Your Use
e

DUNCAN B.C.

FRED EARTHY, Jr.
GENERAL TAILORING
SUITS MADE TO MEASURE
CLEANING AND PRESSING

PHONE 360 P.O. BOX 480
Above Island Drug Store
DUNCAN - B.C.

HORSESHOE BAY INN

Established 1892
EDW. HEMMINGSEN, Proprietor

LICENSED PREMISES

Excellent Rooms and Dining Room
Reasonable Rates

CHEMAINUS, BRITISH COLUMBIA

THE SHOULDER STR)