Eighty Years Ago
October 3, 1935
• Mr. Virnall was elected president of the Langley teachers’ Association. Miss McLeod was vice-president, Mss McLuure was secretary-treasurer, and Miss Philpott was press representative.
• Talk of incorporating Langley Prairie as a seperate municipality was becoming more frequent.
• Mr. and Mrs. Fred Parkinson of Winnipeg were the new owners of the cafe previously rrun by Mr. and Mrs. G. Charter.
• Work started on a new hatchery in Langley Prairie by Mssrs. Rum p and Sendall who had hatched 50,000 chicks the previous year. The new incubator was expected to double their 1934 output.
• C.F. Miller was the Reconstruction candidate for the New Westminster (including Langley) federal riding. Local meetings were addressed by Liberal MP Tom Reid and candidates Jack Morgan of the Conservatives and Rev. E. Baker of the C.C.F.
Seventy Years Ago
October 4, 1945
• A Thanksgiving banquet was planned for Murrayville Hall, to celebrate Welcome Home Week, a week declared by Council to honour returning war veterans. Churches were asked to hold special services, the Legion was planning a smoker concert, and merchants were asked to decorate their stores suitably. Committee members were W.T. Mattick, W. Ward, L. Greenwood, T. Court, and Councillors Jack Roberts, Eric Flowerdew, and Hugh McAuley. Among the repats arriving home were Lt.-Sgt. R.D. Wagner, Pte. A. Burden, and Pte. H.E. Lindahl.
Sixty Years Ago
October 6, 1955
• Townsfolk complained that curbs being laid in Fort langley were too close together, making the streets too narrow and the sidewalks too wide. After first suspending the work in response to the complaints, Council decided to go ahead afterall, without seeking further engineering advice.
• The Fort Langley Board of Trade was concerned about delays in improvements to River Rd. past West Bluff.
• Last remnants of the B&K feed store werre disappearing, leaving a gaping hole in the centre of Langley City.
• New building permits for Langley City and Township had a total value of more than $1 million.
Fifty Years Ago
October 7, 1965
• Building activity for September, worth $250,000, had been more than double that of the previous year, bringing the year-to-date total to more than 50 per cent greater than it had been in 1964.
• Antique artifacts preserved at Schloss Klaphaus, Mr. and Mrs. Fritz Ziegler’s castle home in Fort Langley, were put on public display in Vancouver.
• Fresh frozen turkeys sold for 49 cents per pound, and a three-room home on five acres was offered for rent at $35 per month.
Forty Years Ago
October 2, 1975
• Cash raised by special needs children who sold vegetables at a roadside stand was stolen from Langley Central School. The thief also stole the money the children had brought to school to help pay for their special activities such as bowling, field trips, and swimming lessons.
• Alderman Ralph Barichello, first elected to Township Council in 1964, decided to step down, also leaving his post as the last remaining charter and continually serving member of the GVRD Parks committee.
Thirty Years Ago
October 2, 1985
• A B.C. judge refused to allow a Langley woman to be extradited to face a capital murder charge. The judge ruled that Langley RCMP had failed to inform the woman of her right to counsel when they arrested her at her parents’ Langley home. The 36-year-old woman was charged in Montana with the murder of her 45-year-old husband.
• A nine-year-old girl riding her bicycle was struck and killed by a car in Glen Valley.
• Langley MLA and cabinet minister Bob McClelland promised to do his “very best” to obtain B.C. Lottery funding to help build an indoor swimming pool for Langley.
• A Langley man scheduled to face trial on a manslaughter charge was unable to appear in court after he was critically injured in a car accident.
Twenty Years Ago
October 4, 1995
• Police were unable to attach a motive to a drive-by shooting of an Aldergrove couple’s home. The bullets were fired from an automatic weapon. A husband and wife watching TV in the house were unhurt.
• There was an overwhelming response to an open house held to discuss plans for a cultural centre in Langley’s civic core.
• Fort Langley-Aldergrove MLA Gary Farrell-Collins was assigned to sit as deputy chair of the government committee to select a new Chief Electoral Officer.
• The provincial government announced a tax break for small farms dealing in non-traditional livestock or crops.
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Eighty Years Ago
October 10, 1935
• L.A.D.S. Hall was pasked to the doors for MP Tom Reid’s election speech. Langley Liberal Association president Jack Jones chaired the meeting.
• More seats were needed at the high school, as enrolment had risen to 241. Glenwood School was reported to be overcrowded again, too.
• Ladies’ knitted wool suits were on sale for $2.49 each. Flannelet sheets were on for $2 a pair.
Seventy Years Ago
October 11, 1945
• Five hundred veterans sat down to the Welcome Home Banquet at Murrayville Hall on Thanksgiving Day. Reeve Alex Hope chaired the dinner and Councillor Eric Flowerdew was in charge of entertainment. Tom Court proposed a toast to the armed forces, and Gordon Greenwood replied.
• Langley Athletic Ass’n began repairs to Athletic Hall after an inspection showed that the sills at one end had rotted away. Committees were organized to look after wiring, building crash doors, building a new kitchen, installing plumbing, and planning the grounds.
• An advertisement in the paper urged people to raise rabbits to beat the meat rationing.
Sixty Years Ago
October 13, 1955
• Restoring the old Hudson Bay fort at Fort Langley to its state of 100 years earlier was expected to cost $204,447. Ten per cent of that was to be raised locally by the Fort Langley Restoration Society.
• The school board narrowly approved an Aldergrove site for the new high school. The deadlock of the previous board meeting was broken by newly elected Trustee Norman Armstrong who cast his lot with Trustees A.J. Dodd and Trevor Beggs.
• Federal Health Minister Eric Martin offered Langley Memorial Hospital trustees an $8,000 loan to tide the hospital over its financial embarrassment. The dissatisfied trustees shot back a telegram to say that a proposed meeting to consider closing the hospital would go ahead.
• RCMP were called to the fire sale at Anne Payne’s, to control the crowds of ladies fighting to get into the store. Shoppers had broken down the door the previous Thursday morning.
Fifty Years Ago
October 14, 1965
• Federal Health Minister Eric Martin authorized the conversion of the old Langley Memorial Hospital building into a longterm care nursing home.
• Jumping into Bedford Channel while intoxicated earned a fellow a 30-day jail term, courtesy of Magistrate Lloyd Steele.
• Bill McMillan, Lloyd Steele, Art Sellers, Keith Beadle, and Grant Duckworth directed the local Good Neighbours Fund chaired by Martin O. Knudsen.
• A storm dumped 1.25 inches of rain on Langley, while winds gusting up to 64 miles per hour buffeted the area.
Forty Years Ago
October 9, 1975
• Langley City mayor Bob Duckworth’s pay was raised to $8,667 plus an expense account of $4,333 per year. Aldermen gave themselves raises of $576, for $4,176 each.
• Township Mayor George Preston announced that he would stand ffor re-election for a third term.
Thirty Years Ago
October 9, 1985
• A leap in enrolments raised concerns that large class sizes would reduce individual instruction time for Langley’s 14,971 students.
• A $17.8 million expansion was approved for Langley Memorial Hospital.
• Former Langley City mayor Aubrey Searle announced he would run for a Township aldermanic seat.
• A municipal worker was crushed to death while operating a blacktop roller for Langley Township.
Twenty Years Ago
October 11, 1995
• Arson was believed the cause of a Thanksgiving Day fire that destroyed a Langley City rental home which had been occupied until the previous Saturday by residents “well-known to the RCMP.”
• A family had a serious scare when their home was attacked and windows were broken in the middle of the night, apparently in retaliation for a home invasion that had taken place in the same home two months earlier while other residents had been occupying the premises.
• A roadside check indication that Langley’s traffic law enforcers achieved their goal of “95 for ’95,” in referrence to getting at least 95 per cent of vehicle occupants to buckle up by the end of the year.
• Dirk Boswyk, son of Langley Advance publisher Marilyn Boswyk, was one of two Canadians among the 56 people killed in an earthquake that hit Manzanillo, Mexico.