- Person
- 1900-[1987]<sup>1</sup>
Mr. Fred Woods, originally from the Isle of Man, met his wife Elizabeth in Saskatchewan while he was working on the railway. When they arrived out west in about 1923, the family slept in Stanley Park. Fred’s daughter, Helen, recalls, “We first lived in Coquitlam where Jack and Pat were born. Dad first worked in the railway yards in Coquitlam.” Later, Mr. Woods felt there wasn’t any sense staying in Vancouver during the depression so he began to slowly work himself ‘up on the track’ and away from the city.
Fred became a foreman on the Pacific Great Eastern Railway, and this gave him his first glimpse of Alta Lake. He stayed there as a section foreman until he quit and went into a logging camp cooking. The family first lived near the original school on the southwest side of Alta Lake. From there they moved north to Mile 39 where they lived for six or seven years on property formerly owned by Jack Findlay. Like many people during that time, Findlay lost the property because he was unable to pay the taxes. The Woods’ new home, where Ken was born in 1932, had a barn, a house and acreage.
The Woods family left Alta Lake for good when Mr. Woods joined the army and moved his family to Seymour Heights in North Vancouver, where he and Elizabeth lived for many years.<sup>2</sup>