Tretheway [sic] Road (Windermere)

It’s challenging… to know how to frame the legacy of the Trethewey family here in the Windermere Valley.

The Trethewey (pronounced Treth-EW-ee) family were long time residents of the Windermere Valley, but they were also a family with itchy feet. As daughter Ellen Turner (née Trethewey) later recalls, her father Edward Ernest Trethewey, “was a Man-in-motion. He loved to move to new fields. Mother said she was going to get cardboard furniture, so when Dad took the notion to move she could burn it and start anew.”¹ As a result, the Tretheweys lived in Wilmer, Firlands Ranch (later the Radium townsite), Edgewater, Invermere, Windermere, and at least part of the clan lived up in Spilli. There’s very little chance of tracking all of those movements through the years, so we’ll have to settle with the best we can!

The Trethewey Family

Edward Earnest Trethewey was born 19 December 1892 on Nicomen Island, BC (roughly across the river from Abbotsford and Chilliwack) to parents Samuel Dunn Trethewey and Elizabeth E Morrow.² His parents had been married two years previously in Muskoka, Ontario,³ and moved to New Westminster, BC in time for the 1891 Canadian Census. At that time Samuel was a farmer.⁴

After growing up in the Chilliwack/Abbotsford area,⁵ at age eighteen E.E. Trethewey was living with his parents and siblings while listing his profession on the 1911 census as a rancher.⁶

The Trethewey family has long been a well-known Abbotsford family, particularly for their prominent role in the lumber industry in the area. Samuel’s older brother (E.E. Trethewey’s uncle), Joseph Ogle Trethewey, was President of the Abbotsford Lumber Company: Samuel was co-owner of the lumber mill the company established on Mill Pond and worked there as a manager.

The lumber mill was lucrative, at least for its owners. In 1919, Joseph Trethewey had a family residence built that is now the Trethewey House Heritage Site. One of the reasons for this financial success, however, was that a large part of the workforce at the mill were from South and East Asia. They were both underpaid for their work when compared to white colleagues, and later were the first to be dismissed during the financial difficulties of the Great Depression.⁷

Community members and historians in Abbotsford have also recently drawn attention to the role the Trethewey family played in white-supremacist organizations in the area.⁸ In December 1925, a meeting was held in Abbotsford to open a local branch of the Klu Klux Klan, “to maintain forever “White Supremacy”.” The first to pay the $10 membership fee and submit his application was E.E. Trethewey’s father, Samuel Dunn Trethewey.⁹

Now, this is the moment we can acknowledge that fathers are different than their sons, while also keeping in mind that ideas (and wealth) also pass down through the generations. Samuel’s youngest son (Edward Earnest’s younger brother), Howard Earle Trethewey, followed in their father’s footsteps in supporting the local KKK. Howard is noted as participating in a well-attended parade for the organization down Essendene Avenue in Abbotsford in 1928.¹⁰

In short, ideas of white supremacy were prominent in the Trethewey household, and these ideas played a part in the generation of the family’s wealth. I have been unable to find any records from E.E. Trethewey during his time in Abbotsford, and histories written about the Tretheweys in Abbotsford very deliberately leave out these “unflattering details.”¹¹ As I write this, there is a movement among members of the Abbotsford community to change the name of Trethewey House.

Edward Earnest Trethewey

As mentioned at the outset, E.E. Trethewey had a bit of a wandering foot. At the time of his wedding, on 1 January 1914, he lists his profession as a teamster.¹² He was married to Rosetta May Gilbert, who was born 18 January 1893 just outside of Chilliwack in Camp Slough to parents Milton William Gilbert and Mary Gilbert (née Vallence).¹³ Rosetta grew up in a farming family in the Chilliwack area,¹⁴ with her father finding work also as a labourer at a sawmill (it’s unclear if he worked for the Trethewey family).¹⁵

Thus began the varied travels of the Trethewey family. Edward and Rose, then with four children, are found on the 1921 census on a rented farm near Battle River, Alberta.¹⁶ They appear again, this time in the Windermere Valley, arriving in March 1926 to live in Wilmer, where their three eldest (Gilbert Lloyd, Ellen Bernice, and Roberta Mae) were going to school.¹⁷ The birthplaces of the Trethewey children, noted below, suggest that the family also returned periodically to the Abbotsford area through the 1920s.

Land in the Windermere Valley

The arrival of the Tretheweys to the Windermere area was perhaps not entirely by accident. An unconfirmed record suggests that Ernie’s father, Samuel (he of later KKK fame), had co-owned a ranch in the area back in 1914.¹⁸ Perhaps supporting this statement, following Samuel Trethewey’s death in September 1929, a significant amount of land in the Windermere Valley went up for a tax sale from his estate. This included property just north of Wilmer, up Frances Creek, and a small lot on Sinclair Creek near Radium (Lot 5052 for $152.31; Lot 6364, $62.80; Lot 7912 for $146.28, and Lot 10726, $18.37).¹⁹

Either Samuel or his son also purchased East Firlands Ranch from Harold E. Forster in spring 1927. Consisting of some 960 acres, this property covers much of the present day Radium Hot Springs townsite. At the time of purchase it was noted that, “The present owner is losing no time in tearing up the waste places and making all the cultivatable area to literally blossom like a rose. Mr. Tretheway’s first enterprise will be to put up modern buildings and introduce a good strain of milking cattle.”²⁰

The E.E. Trethewey family, meanwhile, moved from Wilmer to East Firlands Ranch. There were then six children: Ernie took on a variety of jobs aside from ranching including being in charge of bridge construction across the Columbia at Firlands Station,²¹ mining, and lumbering. He also reportedly had a large farm near Vauxhall, just north of Taber, Alberta, which he actively ranched in 1935.²²

East Firlands would remain in the Trethewey family for two decades, until Ernie Trethewey sold the property to Mr and Mrs Edward Thouret in 1947 (the Thourets went on to sell to Kirk Ltd for use as a Christmas tree yard in 1958).²³ A decade previously, in spring 1936, the Trethewey family settled on a new ranch at Invermere.²⁴

The Lumbering Tradition Continues

By the 1940s, E.E. Trethewey had followed in his father and uncle’s footsteps in the lumbering business and become a major player in the industry based up in Radium.²⁵ He and his son, Gilbert Lloyd, took over a small sawmill across the river at Spillimacheen at around the same time.²⁶ It’s a bit unclear as to what happened with Spilli operation. One source reports that the Tretheweys moved the Spilli mill down to Brisco;²⁷ another says that Mr and Mrs Roesch purchased the Trethewey mill at Spillimacheen, seemingly as part of a trade that saw Mr and Mrs Lloyd Trethewey move to the Joe Roesch property in Windermere.²⁸

The Trethewey family had other business ventures as well. In 1953, the Tretheweys incorporated the company “E. Trethewey & Son, Ltd” in Windermere with an authorized capital of $50,000.²⁹ The aims of the business were varied, but it was primarily involved with real estate. The Tretheweys changed the company name on 1 March 1956 to “Steamboat Lumber Co Ltd,” however, so in time it seems that they focused once again on the business of logging and timber.³⁰

Golden Years

Ernie and Rose Trethewey, after a stint living in both Spillimacheen and Edgewater,³¹ moved to Windermere where they celebrated their Golden Wedding Anniversary at the Skookum Inn in January 1964. Ernie is noted at the time as being, “a valued community worker having served on the Windermere District Board of Trade for many years as an executive member and on other public service committees.”³² At the time, in addition to their six children, there were seventeen grandchildren and three great grandchildren. The Tretheweys had one more major milestone, celebrating their Diamond Wedding anniversary in Victoria in 1974.³³ It’s unclear when exactly they left the valley, but they apparently lived for a time in Chilliwack before moving to Victoria.

Ernest E Trethewey passed away on 22 February 1975 in Victoria at age 82, and is buried in the Chilliwack cemetery.³⁴ Rosetta Mae passed away just over a year later, on 30 June 1976, also in Victoria, where their daughter Ellen B. Turner was living.³⁵ The younger Trethewey clan had expanded considerably by this time, then including 18 grandchildren and 26 great grandchildren.³⁶

Tretheway Beach

The Trethewey name continues in the Windermere Valley with Tretheway Beach at Windermere, a development that Ernie and Rosetta created on the shores of the lake.³⁷ This began as a private subdivision with 124 lots for sale, intended for the construction of summer homes, although there was also a community store and a Beach Association, which oversaw the building up of “a fine sandy beach” along the the shore. The main road paralleling the beach is Trethewey Road. As of June 1959, the majority of lot owners were from Calgary, although Chilliwack and Canmore were also represented.³⁸

Entrance sign to Trethewey Beach. In the collection of the Windermere Valley Museum and Archives.

The Trethewey Clan

The six Trethewey children spread out across the province. Gilbert Lloyd Trethewey, born 27 July 1915 in Chilliwack, was also a long time resident of the Windermere Valley. He married Margaret Josephine Taylor, and was by 1975 living in Salmon Arm where he was employed as a heavy duty mechanic. Lloyd passed away in Salmon Arm on 5 May 1991.³⁹

Ellen Bernice Trethewey was born 18 September 1916 in Clayburn B.C. (a suburb of Abbotsford). She was married in Invermere on 23 September 1938 to Wilmer-born electrician Francis Beaveres Turner.⁴⁰ By 1964 the couple had moved to Victoria, where Ellen passed away 3 November 2001.⁴¹

Roberta Mae Trethewey (Birdie) was born 2 May 1918 in Hardesty Alberta, and for a brief time was employed as a cook at the Lady Elizabeth Bruce Memorial Hospital in Invermere.⁴² Roberta married on 6 January 1938 at age nineteen to Wilmer born truck driver John Barr Shibley.⁴³ The newlyweds initially took up residence in Invermere, but eventually found their way down to Cranbook. Roberta was self-employed with a delivery service for twenty years. Her usual address remained in Cranbrook when she passed away in Golden on 15 June 1999.⁴⁴

Grace Elizabeth Trethewey was born 22 March 1920 in Abbotsford, and was married in 1941 in Lethbridge, Alberta to Frank Fairhurst.⁴⁵ A couple of decades later, in 1962, the couple were living in Esquimalt, near Victoria, where Frank was employed with the civil service.⁴⁶ Grace passed away in Victoria on 15 June 2003, then the last of the Trethewey siblings.⁴⁷

Erna Lillian Trethewey was also born in Abbotsford, on 30 November 1921, and was a power machine operator in Victoria when she married Edward John Wonnacott, a cook for the Royal Navy, in Victoria on 24 February 1943.⁴⁸ In 1975 the Wonnacotts were living in Cranbrook,⁴⁹ however Erna was later in Penticton where she worked as a retail clerk. Erna passed away there on 8 July 2001.⁵⁰

The youngest of the Tretheweys was Mary Evelyn Trethewey, born 15 July 1925 in Clearbrook B.C. (a suburb of Abbotsford).⁵¹ Evelyn married Alan Kinsey. In 1964 the couple were living in Golden,⁵² while in 1975 they were in Invermere.⁵³ Evelyn passed away 30 March 1999 in Penticton.⁵⁴

Trethewey Legacy

It’s challenging, once learning about the history of the Trethewey family in Abbotsford, to know how to frame the legacy of the Trethewey family here in the Windermere Valley. I was unable to find any records written by members of the family, so their history here (and in Abbotsford for that matter) is very much second hand and lacking that first person voice.

There is, however, as members of the Abbotsford historical community have discovered, a tendency for community histories to focus only on positive aspects of the past, while negating or even ignoring the less pleasant parts. The long-standing community histories about Abbotsford, for example, have emphasized the financial success of the Trethewey family while overlooking the racism and inequality that brought about this success. The white supremacy that is also a part of the history of the Trethewey family has, until recently, gone ignored.

Research into these less positive aspects of Windermere Valley history has been minimal to non-existent but, as the Trethewey family demonstrates, it has had an impact on undestanding valley development. Trethewey money, earned at the Abbotsford lumber mill, was used extensively here. But the impact of racism and inequality is also more nuanced than this. The establishment of Trethewey Beach, as a ‘private’ summer-time community, was very much aimed at keeping some people out. The background of the family that established the beach has some influence both on how we understand this development specifically, and that period in valley history more generally. Popular understandings of history in the valley have yet to come to terms with this legacy of inequality, and the prevalence of the ideas that brought this about. The Trethewey family is only one small part of it.

See Also

Firlands Ranch
Harold Forster
Radium Hot Springs

Footnotes