Parker Williams

My first memory of staying at the Reco is the Japanese internees waiting on tables dressed in white. I was born in 1939, so this was 1943 or 1944. Sandon was uninhabitable in winter, and full of empty buildings. My father was a lawyer, doing pro bono work for Alma. She and Johnny were desperately short of cash. They just about lost everything in the Depression due to non-payment of taxes, but the federal government declared a moratorium on seizures because they were already loaded up with useless properties.

 

We stayed at the Reco eight or ten times over five or six years. My mother was a nurse in Nelson and probably got to know Alma. Johnny was a wizened old man. My memory of him is in his office. You entered the Reco Hotel through the front door and turned left. He had a big desk and shelves lined with ore samples. Alma had lime and lemon trees in the bay windows around the main door, which were always beautiful, and sometimes bore fruit.

 

When I was seven, Ted Kleim took me underground, up to a working face, thousands of feet in. We remade contact years later with Ted and Alma in Silverton, although we had not returned there yet. In 1990, a year after Alma died, we remade contact again. Ted was devastated. He was there looking after the place. I’m convinced he had also been caring for Alma. He had a huge dislike for Johnny Harris, whom he called a “useless son of a bitch.” Alma always regarded Johnny highly. She was always Mrs. Harris. 

 

Ted and Alma had separate bedrooms in Silverton, and separate bathrooms. She had terrible arthritis and was considerably overweight by the ‘80s. Ted bought a diesel generator, built a shed for it, went and pushed the button, and the house was always warm for Alma. He just adored her. He was very different from Alma. Ted was unlearned. He was bright, compassionate, kind, and looked after money well but lacked that class.

 

In the mid-’80s we went to Silverton and called on Ted and Alma. We were having a nice visit when there was a knock on the back door. Two Asian ladies asked if Mrs. Harris was in. Alma came to the door and they stared at each other for seven seconds, then shrieked, burst into tears, and hugged each other. The two ladies had waited tables in the Reco Hotel. They took the trouble to look her up, fell into each other’s arms and wept.

 

During the internment, my father and I were driving from Sandon to Trail in November. We crossed Lemon Creek and climbed the hill that used to go around the bluff. At a pullout near the top, we got out to have a look at Lemon Creek internment camp. It was cold, raining, and the internees were burning wet wood. There was a miasma of smoke. The huts were thrown together. Not structures, really. My father looked at them for five minutes and said “Look what we’ve done.” Then we got in the car and went home.

 

Parker Williams’ obituary: https://vancouversunandprovince.remembering.ca/obituary/parker-williams-1066104220