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Doreen Lawson fonds

https://search.heritageburnaby.ca/link/archivedescription58356
Repository
City of Burnaby Archives
Date
1950-2002
Collection/Fonds
Doreen Lawson fonds
Description Level
Fonds
Physical Description
18 cm of textual records + approx. 1000 photographs
Scope and Content
Fonds consists of records created and received by Doreen Lawson during her career as Parks Commissioner (1965-1971), Burnaby City Council member (1972-1985, 1990-1999) and environmental advocate following her retirement from Council in 1999. Records include election campaign materials, congratulat…
More detail
Repository
City of Burnaby Archives
Date
1950-2002
Collection/Fonds
Doreen Lawson fonds
Physical Description
18 cm of textual records + approx. 1000 photographs
Description Level
Fonds
Accession Number
2003-30
2015-15
Scope and Content
Fonds consists of records created and received by Doreen Lawson during her career as Parks Commissioner (1965-1971), Burnaby City Council member (1972-1985, 1990-1999) and environmental advocate following her retirement from Council in 1999. Records include election campaign materials, congratulatory letters and correspondence, community speeches and slideshow presentations regarding the conservation of Burnaby Lake, the administrative papers of the Burnaby Centennial Rhododendron and Spring Flower Show Society, and photographs of Burnaby waterways and wildlife.
History
Doreen Anne Fowler Lawson was born July 8, 1928, to Eva Barnhill and Leonard Fowler. Her parents met in Alberta but decided to move to Vancouver where they got married and Doreen was born. The family moved to the north side of Claude Avenue in Burnaby when Doreen was a few months old. In 1931, they moved to a house with an acre of land directly across the street from their first house.
When Doreen was six, her family moved to Collingwood, Vancouver, near where her father grew up. This is where her brother Ron was born. The family moved again to County Line in Langley Prairie in 1944, which is where Doreen met Edward Lawson, her future husband. Soon after, they moved to a seven-acre plot in Burquitlam. Ed and Doreen Lawson’s eldest daughter, Linda, was born in 1954. Their second daughter, Wendy, was born in 1959 and their youngest, Lisa, was born in 1961. They lived in the Brentwood area, where all three daughters attended Brentwood Elementary School. Linda went on to Alpha Secondary School.
In 1945, Doreen began her first of several office jobs, and in the early 1950s she became the first woman to be elected into a vice-president position within the BC Trade Union Congress (now the BC Federation of Labour).
Doreen Lawson had a long and prolific political career, starting as Parks Commissioner in 1965, and serving as its chair from 1969 to 1971. She was instrumental in the selection and promotion of the rhododendron as the official flower of Burnaby in 1966. In 1971, she was elected to Burnaby City Council and, in 1972, Doreen proposed that Council take action to declare Burnaby Lake a wildlife sanctuary. After a 10-year campaign, she was able to convince Council to declare the park “a nature conservation area.” She put forward a policy of preservation for creeks and streams, as well as a proposal to preserve trees in subdivisions, both of which were adopted by Council. Doreen continued to serve on Council until 1985, during which time she initiated and chaired the Burnaby Information Committee, which designed the present Burnaby logo (and official flower pins) and established the Information Burnaby Newsletter. In 1979 Doreen Lawson won Vancouver Natural History Society’s Frank Sanford Award.
In 1984, Doreen was elected the first woman president of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities. Doreen ran as a BC Liberal Party candidate in the new Federal Riding of Burnaby in 1979, and from 1985 to 1987, she served as the Executive Director of the British Columbia Liberal Party. As the B.C. Liberal Party Executive Director, her major responsibility was to work with both the Federal and Provincial Associations in implementing riding organizations and fundraising programs in preparation for election time. In the 1980s, Doreen was an active guest lecturer at Burnaby Elementary and High Schools as well as at the University of British Columbia and Simon Fraser University. Doreen was active in a variety of community clubs and organizations including: the Burnaby Library Board; Greater Vancouver Spinners and Weavers Guild; and Vancouver Natural History Society. She was an executive member of the Burnaby-New Westminster Canada Summer Games; the Burnaby Division of the United Way; Information Burnaby Committee; and the Brentwood Parent Teachers Association; as well as serving as the President of the Burnaby Voters Association from 1988-1990.
In 1990, Doreen was elected back to Burnaby Council and put forward the rejuvenation of Burnaby Lake which she saw completed before her final year on Council in 1999. Doreen continued to be a strong environmental advocate for the protection and rejuvenation of Burnaby Lake after she retired from council.
Doreen Lawson died October 11, 2003.
Media Type
Textual Record
Photograph
Creator
Lawson, Doreen A.
Notes
Title based on contents of fonds
MSS071, photo catalogue 605, photo catalogue 618
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Laurence J. Peter family fonds

https://search.heritageburnaby.ca/link/archivedescription88409
Repository
City of Burnaby Archives
Date
1949
Collection/Fonds
Laurence J. Peter family fonds
Description Level
Fonds
Physical Description
1 p. of textual records.
Scope and Content
Fonds consists of one Share Certificate for the Lochdale Co Operative Association.
More detail
Repository
City of Burnaby Archives
Date
1949
Collection/Fonds
Laurence J. Peter family fonds
Physical Description
1 p. of textual records.
Description Level
Fonds
Access Restriction
In Archives only
Accession Number
2013-29
Scope and Content
Fonds consists of one Share Certificate for the Lochdale Co Operative Association.
History
In 1941, Laurence J. Peter began his career as an industrial arts teacher at Lord Tweedsmeer High School in Cloverdale, after an illness kept him out of World War II. It was here that he met his future wife, Nancy M. Bailey, who was the vice principal of the school. The couple married in 1943 and made their way to Burnaby in 1947 after purchasing a one-acre lot in Burnaby from Mr. Wright for $1,000. When the couple purchased this lot, Nancy was teaching English at Burnaby South High School, while Laurence was teaching Woodwork at New Haven Borstal Home for Boys in the Provincial Corrections system. The lot was located in the historic neighbourhood of Lozell’s at 7229 Lougheed Highway and was renumbered to 7449 Lougheed in 1958. Laurence and Nancy had four children, two boys (John and Ted) and two girls (Alice and Margaret). When they first purchased the lot, they built a small house where they lived with their eldest son, John, until the completion of a larger house in 1949. Their second son, Ted, was born a few weeks before the completion of the larger house and was brought into the new home from the hospital. Their daughters were born over the next few years. Laurence and Nancy had built the larger house using a technique of peeled plywood core logs. Laurence and his cousin, Hewton Peter, who owned the lot next door, designed and built a machine to build exterior walls for their houses using plywood cores. In 1947, plywood cores were turned (peeled) down to six inches in diameter and then discarded to be chipped for the pulp industry. To build the house, the cores were splined together and stood on end making a vertical log house. Only three houses were ever built using their invention. The three-bedroom, one-bathroom house was completed in October 1949. The exterior of the house was never painted, just brushed with linseed oil. The traffic of the Lougheed Highway was not heard inside the house due to the six-inch walls and was very economical to heat in the snowy winters of the 1950s. Over the years, the couple worked on finishing the interior of the house, which included an intricately carved eight-foot-wide oak mantelpiece carved by Laurence. Parts of the mantel were reclaimed from the demolished old Hotel Vancouver and cobblestones reclaimed from the interurban tracks were used for the fireplace and stonework around the property. The family raised goats for milk and chickens for eggs and maintained a large vegetable garden and fruit trees on the property. When the goats and chickens were not needed anymore, Laurence slaughtered them for meat which they stored in a freezer at the Lochdale Co-operative until they were ready to consume them. The family was actively involved in the Burnaby community with Laurence and Nancy taking part in local politics and community activities and their children participating in Boy Scouts and Girl Guides and music lessons. All four children graduated from Burnaby North High School, and in 1970, Ted and Alice completed their studies at British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT). They worked at local jobs in the community, including building the Burnaby Mountain Golf Course. Laurence moved on to take a position as a Mental Health Coordinator (Special Counselor) in the Vancouver School System, and in 1959, Nancy joined the staff at the newly opened Burnaby Central Senior Secondary School as a math teacher, later becoming the head of the Mathematics Department. The couple continued their education at summer school at Washington State University in Pullman, Washington, where Nancy completed her Master's Degree in 1964 and Laurence his Doctoral degree in 1963. Laurence joined the faculty of the University of British Columbia in 1965 and later received the WSU Regents’ Distinguished Alumnus Award in 1980. The couple separated in 1965 and Laurence moved to California in 1966 to teach at the University of Southern California. Laurence became widely famous in 1969, after the publication of his bestselling book, "The Peter Principle," which has been translated into more than 38 languages. Following this publication, he went on to author eight more books and published several texts in the field of ‘Prescriptive Teaching’. He died on January 12, 1990, at the age of 70 at his home in Palos Verdes Estates, California, and is honoured with a plaque as part of the Literary Landmarks program of the Vancouver Public Library located at the Metro Theatre, 1370 Marine Drive. Nancy continued to teach at Burnaby South, until her retirement in 1978 after 30 years as head of the Mathematics Department at Burnaby Central. She was an active member of the Burnaby Historical Society for many years. She passed away in Nanaimo near her family on April 21, 2013, at the age of 97.
Media Type
Textual Record
Creator
Peter, Laurence J.
Notes
Title based on contents of fonds
MSS186-001
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