The granddaughter of the family who used to live inside the now-demolished home at 1031 Sixth Ave. for nearly 50 years wants the community to remember it stood “tall and proud.”
Julie Simmonds only recently found out about the David McLaughlin House being demolished. Her brother had driven by the construction site and immediately called to tell her the news.
“I had mixed feelings,” she told the Record. “It hasn’t looked very good over the last 30 so years, and yet you’re tied to it in some way. It was just a unique Victorian house. It meant a lot to my family.”
Simmonds’ grandparents, Martin and Elsie Bull, moved from the Prairies to New Westminster in the late 1920s. The pair tried farming in Saskatchewan, and after many failed attempts, decided to pack their bags and head west.
“By that time they had four children,” said Simmonds, adding that number would eventually grow to seven. “They auctioned everything off around 1927 and came out here on a train. They didn’t know where they were going, just knew they had to leave to make a living for their family.”
Martin would go on to get a job at the post office, while Elsie stayed at home with the kids. With some help from the Legion, they rented for a while and then bought the Sixth Avenue home in 1936 for $300.
The Bulls would keep the four-bedroom, one-bathroom abode in tip-top shape, according to Simmonds.
“They kept it immaculate. I remember their English garden, their cherry tree in the backyard we’d climb. I remember the living room. The ceiling was beautiful, very ornate,” she said. “In the kitchen, they had a clothes rack that lowered down. You hung your clothes on it, pulled it back up and the wood stove would dry them.”
Martin would ensure the exterior was just as maintained as the interior. He’d throw a fresh coat of paint on whenever the outside of the house looked dull. The shrubbery and flowers around the fence would be pruned and weeded. At Christmas time, he’d hang lights around the windows.
“They worked really hard for everything they had. They were pretty house proud, which people were in those days,” said Simmonds. “They were just working-class people. This was a working-class home.”
Elsie passed away in 1971, followed by Martin in ‘83, the year the home was sold to future city councillor Chuck Puchmayr. It was sold again in 2014 to current owner Steve Long.
Up until it was bulldozed, the 133-year-old house had been listed on the city’s heritage inventory but wasn’t a designated heritage home. Long bought it with the intention to restore the outside and renovate the inside, according to a city staff report.
It was demolished in July after city council – Puchmayr recused himself – unanimously rejected a heritage revitalization agreement (HRA), which if approved, would have moved the house to the rear of the 4,385-square-foot lot, to make way for a new house at the front. More than a dozen Moody Park neighbours attended a June 20 public hearing to oppose the plan.
“I fought tooth and nail to keep the house,” Long told the Record.
Meanwhile, Simmonds acknowledged not much can be done now. For her, it’s about the memories.
“I just think of family. Because they had seven kids, when they got together, and all the grandchildren were there, it was a little house full of people,” she said. “It was grandma and grandpa’s house.”
