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| Victoria is home to the British Columbia Legislature Photograph December 2019 |
Following my aunt Helen, I thought I was just the second member of my extended Anderson family to make beautiful Victoria home. Turned out I was wrong!
While going through old newspaper clippings from my uncle Bob, I came upon a pair of obituaries for a couple who died in Victoria within days of each other in September of 1993: Rudolph ("Rudy") Carlyle Anderson and his wife Helen Bernice (Morrison) Anderson. Rudolph was my first cousin twice removed. (During the early 1900's the various branches of the Anderson family had dispersed by settling in three different Canadian provinces and several American states, making it less likely for cousins to know one another. Rudy and my grandfather Ingwald Anderson were both grandsons of our Swedish immigrant ancestor Israel Anderson).
Rudy and Helen's obituaries were a wealth of information, the sort genealogists love to encounter. Much of the information in this story comes from these obituaries written lovingly by one or both of their two daughters, Judy and Joan.
Rudy was born in Elm Creek, Manitoba on 4 May 1910 to Carl Gustav Anderson and Marion (Folson) Anderson. He received his M.D. at the University of Manitoba in the middle of the "Dirty Thirties" and began his solo medical practice at a town of some 400 people at God's Lake Gold Mine, Manitoba. He married Helen Bernice Morrison there in in 1937. (Probably they had met in Winnipeg, Manitoba while both were attending university there. She had received her BA in 1934, following a degree of ATCM Piano Teacher and Performer in 1932.) According to her obituary, the couple were "best friends for over 60 years and married 56 years".
Rudy must have enjoyed working and living in mining towns for he next established his solo medical practice at Beren's River Mines, Favourable Lake; then he was a general practitioner at Okiep Copper Ltd. in South Africa.
By 1943, wanting to join the Canadian Army Medical Corp in London, England, he signed up with the British Merchant Navy in Capetown. His surgical service in Europe landed him in England when he was discharged in 1948.
He took post graduate training in orthopedic surgery at Liverpool before returning to Canada. From 1949 to 1952, he was in orthopedic practice in Regina, Saskatchewan (close to home for my own branch of the Andersons).
In the mid 1950s Rudy and Helen made their final move: to Victoria, B.C. Their first listing in the Victoria City Directory is for 1955 where he is listed as an orthopedic surgeon at Suite #701 - 1029 Douglas Street (in the space now occupied by the far less attractive Royal Bank building - an area I walk past several times a week.)
His first Victoria home with wife Helen was at 3062 Oakdowne, but Greater Victoria has so many wonderful neighbourhoods and they made their home in several over the decades:
- 3020 Valdez Place in Oak Bay
- 1550 Shasta Place
- 4142 Tuxedo Drive
- 4401 Hannah Court
- Apt. 402 - 2930 Cook Street
Rudy took up the post of Chief of Staff at the beautiful St. Joseph's Hospital in the 1960's. His listings in the City Directories show that he shared an office with several other doctors. In 1968 his office space is at Suite #450 - 1105 Pandora Avenue.
In the early 1970s he was the President of the B.C. College of Physicians and Surgeons. Rudy retired from medical practice about 1980.
A love of gardening was shared with Helen. He enjoyed curling and history and his daughters in the obituary called him "an armchair politician". The couple were obviously very active in the community; Helen's obituary mentions her participation in the University of Victoria Women's Club Philosophy Group and her presidency of the Women's Auxiliary of the Victoria Art Gallery. Her hobbies included weaving, painting and music. The couple loved to entertain and I'm sure their family and friends were well entertained by them.
Rudy died 15 September 1993 of cancer. Four days later, Helen followed. She had suffered for years from a progressive muscle disease (IBM) and eye problems, but it appears that, in the end, she died of a broken heart after losing her husband and best friend. Their ashes were scattered at Royal Oak Burial Park in Victoria.
Sadly, since I didn't move to Victoria until 2001, my path never had a chance to cross that of Rudy and Helen. So close and yet so far!
Resources:
Victoria Times Colonist Newspaper, obituaries of Rudolph Carlyle Anderson and Helen (nee Morrison) Anderson, September 1993.
Greater Victoria City Directories 1955-1993: For the year 1955 on the Vancouver Public Library website and for subsequent years in the Local History Room at the Greater Victoria Public Library
McCalls Funeral Home, Victoria BC (email to the author dated 6 January 2020)
What a wonderful post about Rudy and Helen. Thanks so much for sharing!
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