Dawn Penniket

My roots are in Sandon. My dad’s uncle [was] Bruce White. [Dad] was up there as a kid. He came from Minneapolis. He wanted to work in the mines as a mine carpenter. Dad was ten years old. He knew Johnny Harris, of course. I had met Johnny. He never, ever turned his back to the door. I can remember that as a little kid.

 

Do you know why? Yeah, the story was that he murdered somebody. He could never go back to the States.

 

Do you know who told you? My father. I can remember him pointing it out to me, and anytime I went in to the old Reco Hotel with my dad — this is before the flood — he always stood with his back to the wall. That was a well-known fact. My dad said “You see old Johnny? He never turned his back on the door.” There was also a rumour that he carried a derringer in his pocket.

 

Do you ever hear about Johnny being married to someone before Alma? Yeah, I think so. I don’t know who it was. He was quite a rogue. He was one that brought in all of the high-class acts for the opera house. That’s a story in itself, because Uncle Bruce married a first-class violinist. I have met his children, my dad’s cousins back in Maine. They came out when we were living in South Slocan, and we took them up to Sandon and had a good time.

 

There’s another person who had a wonderful history in Sandon, Mary MacDonald. Whose two brothers founded a hotel. We always called her Miss Mac. She always said she was the first respectable woman into the valley. She came in by horseback from Kaslo to keep house for her three brothers who ran — I can’t remember the name of the hotel off-hand.

 

Was your family there when the fire happened? Dad had left. He worked for the hardware store up there and transferred down to Nelson when he was 17. Dad came to Sandon in 1893. He was 10 years old. Johnny Sandon and Bruce White are credited with laying out the townsite, and that was my dad’s uncle. My grandmother’s youngest brother. When he founded the Slocan Star, he sent for his sister, his mother, father, and grandfather, who was very deaf. So he was hired as a mine carpenter. That’s how the Sharp family came to Sandon. Oscar White, Bruce’s older brother, took over, and then his son Clyde also was up in Sandon and was associated with the Slocan Star. 

 

My father was a wonderful storyteller. I just loved his stories. He was there as a kid of 10 years old. There was only one thing that curbed his style, was he had to go to school. He could tell wonderful stories about how he collected his money for 4th of July firecrackers. He got to know the ladies of the evening down in the lower gulch. And then save his bottles, mickey bottles. He’d trundle them up in his wagon and sell them to the various owners. He knew everybody in Sandon.

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When did he move away? He came down to Nelson at 17 on the boat, didn’t know a soul. He met Dr. Wilmot Steed, who was the present Dr. Steed’s grandfather and they became very close friends.

 

He got a job as the assistant delivery man for Byers hardware. He started working for Byers in Sandon. He delivered telegrams up there as a kid. He was an enterprising kid. I wished I’d had a tape recorder when Dad was telling all his stories. 

 

Dad didn’t have a place to say. He became a fireman because he could sleep at the firehall. Then he took up rowing and could sleep down at the boathouse where they had rooms for the fellows that belonged to the club. So he had quite a colourful history in Nelson.

 

Everytime we ever went up to New Denver or Sandon, we always had to call in to see Johnny Harris. So I remember him, and then Alma, after Johnny died, she sold off all his stuff from the Reco Hotel. Dad bought three of the washstands, I think for $2.50 apiece. Beautiful chest of drawers, which he gave to my daughter. Alma Harris worked in South Slocan relieving at the post office for Mrs. Yeatman. She came down to work there. I don’t know how she met the Yeatmans. My husband George worked for the West Kootenay [Power]. We moved into town in 1951. I can remember going to the post office at South Slocan when Alma was substituting. 

 

And then she moved away to Alberta. I don’t know about that, but she was around Kaslo. She always had a cat draped around her shoulders, I remember that. Everytime we were up in Sandon before the flood, Dad knew Johnny Harris very well. It was my dad who pointed that out to me, that he never stood with the back to the wall.

 

Did Johnny ever talk about his past? No, they never talked about it. I heard stories, just like you’ve heard stories. Dad did tell me that he was rumoured to have shot someone — he said “rumoured,” he didn’t say it was a fact. He also told me it was rumoured that he carried a derringer in his pocket. I never saw it, I don’t know if my dad ever saw it. 

 

That picture taken looking down the street of Sandon and there’s a boy standing with his foot on the step right in the foreground, that’s my father. I can’t verify it, except that I looked at it under a magnifying glass, and knowing my father, if it was something like that, a photographer there, he’d be there.

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I had an interesting thing happen to me when I was out in New Zealand. This was after the war. I went out with my baby — who is now 60 years old! — as a war bride. We were the first ones to cross the Pacific after the war. I was living on a farm with the Pennikets and my dad came out and he said, “Dawn, you better go out the back, there’s an old fellow here selling stock minerals.” He was rather an old — I won’t say a tramp, but an old-timer. He was selling fertilizer and stock minerals to the farmers. He said he was from Canada. He said “Well, missy, I suppose you’re from the east.” I said no, I’m from the west. He wanted to know if I was from Vancouver. No. And we finally got around, he said he was a miner, and I asked “Were you ever in Sandon?” He said yes. I said “Did you ever hear of Bruce White?” He said “Oh my god, he gave me my first job.” There I was standing on the back porch talking to this old guy — I think his name was [unintelligible] but I wasn’t sure. I said “Did you ever see the kids playing ball on the main street of Sandon?” He said yes. I said my dad was one of them. I maintain that everybody in the world has passed through Sandon or Nelson.