Photograph of a large cannas plant in the garden at Robert Burnaby Park. The woman standing to the right of the cannas plant may be one of James Massey's daughters.
Photograph of a large cannas plant in the garden at Robert Burnaby Park. The woman standing to the right of the cannas plant may be one of James Massey's daughters.
1 cm. of textual records + 4 photographs (copy-print)
Scope and Content
Fonds consists of receipts, agreements, and registry letter for family home on Harwood Street, along with an election slip, a labour publication, and a propaganda leaflet related to Lawrence Brainerd, as well as a newspaper clipping from 2013 and photocopied and copy-printed early photographs of th…
1 cm. of textual records + 4 photographs (copy-print)
Description Level
Fonds
Accession Number
2013-05
2013-06
Scope and Content
Fonds consists of receipts, agreements, and registry letter for family home on Harwood Street, along with an election slip, a labour publication, and a propaganda leaflet related to Lawrence Brainerd, as well as a newspaper clipping from 2013 and photocopied and copy-printed early photographs of the family.
History
Lawrence and Violet Brainerd came to Vancouver in 1925 or 1926. Lawrence purchased a small house on Harwood Street in North Burnaby for his wife and two children from her previous marriage. Roy Brainerd was born in 1928 at Royal Columbian Hospital. His sister Patricia Brainerd (later White) was born in 1931, also at Royal Columbian Hospital.
Lawrence rebuilt and renovated the house to fit his growing family, planting abundant vegetable gardens and building a chicken coop, and paid off his taxes by doing roadwork for the municipality.
Violet Brainerd supplemented her family's income by doing in-home nursing, as she'd been a nurse in France during the war.
Roy Brainerd started at Douglas Road School in 1934 and then attended Hugh M. Fraser High School. Roy left his high school at 15 to work for Snap-On Tools, working his way up from pushing a broom to becoming a branch manager. He retired in 1983 after 41 years of service. Together with his wife, Carol, Roy raised three daughters.
Between 1955 and 2001, the Brentwood Neighbourhood developed into one of Burnaby's four official Town Centres. The Brentwood Town Centre serves the north-west sector of the Municipality, providing facilities such as commercial developments - of which the Brentwood Mall is the most significant. Under Burnaby's Residential Development Framework adopted by Council in 1981, the Town Centre also incorporated a full range of multi-housing types and forms in close relationship with their commercial facilities. In 1996, the City adopted the Brentwood Town Centre Development Plant to solidify the area as a focus of higher-density and higher-intensity residential and commercial opportunities, public transit and supporting leisure facilities.
Development in the Broadview area slowed during World War Two, but after the war, the area became home to a number of industrial sites. The first major plant to be built here was the Dominion Bridge Company which opened in 1930.