343_Kevin-Bell_Mouats-Trading-Co-History_2007.mp3

otter.ai

16.02.2024

no

Outline

100-year-old family business' history and ownership.
• Speaker 1 discusses the history of their family's business, starting with Gilbert Lloyd and his mother Jean in 1907.
• Speaker 1 highlights Jean's resilience in the face of tragedy, including the death of five of her 11 children.
• Gilbert was a clever businessman who ran the store with his mother, Jane, and later his brother, Matt.
• After Gilbert's death in 1907, the business was sold to Vic 20, a cousin, and later passed to Tom, who is still involved in the store today.

The history of a store on Saltspring Island.
• Gilbert bought the building in 1907 and it was later knocked down in 1959.
• Gilbert Mullet, a capable businessman, faced numerous challenges in his life, including polio and the Spanish flu, while running a store on Saltspring Island.
• In 1946, Gilbert died, leaving his three sons to run the store until 1969.

A family-owned business and its history.
• Gilbert, a businessman and patriarch of Saltspring, was a key figure in the community and handled various aspects of the island's economy.
• Harvey and Mack owned a Ford dealership from 1913 until the 1940s, also offering funeral services and caskets.
• Speaker 1 discusses real estate dealings with Lori and Mack in the 1950s, including building a Bank of Montreal location and selling a part of Gracepoint Oil.

Land development in Ganges, BC from 1960 to 1971.
• Speaker 1 discusses rental income from properties in Ganges, BC, including the fire hall and park land.
• In 1970, Bob filled in the shallow backwater behind the firewall and Ganges, and purchased the ship anchor and the historic building across the street.
• Tom Mullet transformed the village's skyline with 6 buildings, renovating 3-4 others, in 29 years.

The history and development of a commercial area in Victoria, BC.
• Tom built several buildings in Ganges, including a post office and credit union.
• Speaker 1 discusses renovations and relocations of businesses in the village, including the addition of a new gallery and restaurant.
• Unknown Speaker recounts the history of a company, mentioning key buildings and staff.

The history of a hardware store and its employees.
• Mary, longest-serving employee, manages store for 5th time.
• David's success story with Molex, from student to running the company.
• Speaker 1 mentions that the boys arrived on the island in 1978 and 1977, and later moved to the Nymo from the Shetland Islands.
• Speaker 1 shares that the house built by Jesse and his wife was important for their marriage and that it was built before they got married.

Unknown Speaker 0:00
Once again, thanks for having me. And thanks for being interested in law, it's it's a very nice to accompany hoping to do a little bit of justice here the next 30 or 40 minutes. As Bob mentioned, we're having our 100th anniversary this year, that will be on Saturday, August the fourth, we're having a bad time because it coincides with the old timers. In your caution to the wind and superstition aside, and that we had Charles Kahn writes a book a year in advance of our anniversary, figuring it's not even nice to run the business into the ground, and the years continue to flourish. And Charles did a fantastic job with the book. Lots of great comments. And this is the cover of the books. And it wouldn't be much of a merchant if I didn't tell you it was for sale of all the bookstores that voice downtown. And I'll be relying very heavily on this book in this presentation today.

Unknown Speaker 1:05
This was my, my working title for the book now. 100 years of practice. That's how we make more perfect. And it chairs, Charles. And then a Muslim friend of mine told me that only Allah was perfect. So I stroked that off, who tasted great. And I realized too, that not everything we do it is great. So frankly, that wasn't good enough either. So I bumped it up to very good. Very

Unknown Speaker 1:44
sensitive, fourth generation of family ownership. The Bloodline gets a little weak with me. Not interested really commonly

Unknown Speaker 2:07
have my wife, brother, Jr, vertical shareholder of the company. And we have some sixth generation members of the family coming along. So hopefully they'll be more let me explain this. So it sets the framework for the presentation that we're going to have this played with people. In 1907, Gilbert Lloyd and his mother Jean started the store. And everything I read everything after Jean was quite a remarkable woman. She, she lives, her husband died at 9839 years old, and she had 11 children. I don't suppose there was much in the way of social services. And then a couple of months after her husband died, their youngest daughter died, was about five months old. And in total, Jane outlive five of her her 11 children. So I mean, she obviously saw some tragedy, the first thing she overcame. Gilbert was the fourth child of the 11th. And I think perhaps he was similar to his mother probably come from the same cloth overcame his own personal adversity. And he was a very clever businessman. And he ran the store, he was actually the driving force behind the store to has many of the qualities that Jane had. And so it made good sense to see the two of them start this company. But Gilbert died in 1907. He has three boys, Laurie fallen and Matt took over the business. And I knew all three of these fellas. Great guys. Just the sort of people you'd like to do business with when you go to the store, you can get a fair deal in the future. Well, in 1969, DeLorean Mack sold the business to Vic 20. And that is their cousin there was a cousin. I know did really well with my father. And he's a great guy. You don't think you really my father is a great guy who has a really good role model.

Unknown Speaker 4:30
And Nike 71 Nick passes business over the younger brother Tom to take over the ownership of managing the store. And there's another super guy, first of all, and cleverly has seen the bottom of that argument and come up with the solutions and he's been very patient with me. Coming sort of fashionable, next job. And as I say, I'm not a bad one, but I'm certainly more than spirit So what, what we're going to do today is I'm going to talk a little bit about was Gilbert was running the store and then the glory and Matt for running the store and then running the store. We also have family members of the family here. We have Gilbert's daughter, Peggy Jobson here and take it to be available to ask a question. We have Lori fiandre here to S max Maxwell has a daughter. And we have Bonnie Brian here, and that's Lori's daughter. So and we have declined to hear in the flesh. So is that the representation of families over the history of the store? Unfortunately, Tom couldn't be here, you probably are aware that he's had a serious bout of staph infection that's hospitalized three or four months. It's much better he's home now. But Victoria siesta specialist, so he's a proving out, and then he wants you to know that but otherwise.

Unknown Speaker 6:10
This was the this was the original story point as measured by narrative in that building. It takes the shape of that they didn't. Let's see. So narrow right down that building clips, it looks very long and narrow. But I don't think that I don't think that really reflects what the building actually looks like. But this was the building again, and Gilbert. This is the business and the building. And Gilbert bought in 1907. This was an ultimate purpose story. And this building was later knocked down in 1959. And on that site currently is a building that we call the purpose building. And that's going to last ice cream.

Unknown Speaker 6:55
We don't know later, people are taking magnifying glasses to the business must be very good. Because 1907 They started off in the building on the left and then 90 probably moved into the building on the right. And the old building then became abandoned boarding house or was officially called again. Jane Lloyd ran that boarding house and lived there until she died in 1935. To the the new building, which is the same building that we're in today, Gilbert were to show up, we certainly recognize the building on the outside, it looks pretty familiar, but we have changed the inside considerably over the years.

Unknown Speaker 7:47
I love this shot. This is exactly how I like what I would imagine that will look like in the 30s and 40s. Here we're looking at the backside of the bullets right here, and this is the boarding house. This little gap in between would be a boat where service road goes now alongside the pirate building. This little black area is was the powerhouse and then later on the butchery for the store and Maggie's massive live there. But currently, it's the home of the treehouse cafe. This area is not all here anymore, but this little part of it is and this is not more small. And in the area in between being filled in Joanna ferrets beauty salon and part of Home Hardware, paint department and electrical department. Corporate I guess this picture would be taken sort of from a trip looking back in time, which you're going to see is all of this area will become land as we get into different talks like this.

Unknown Speaker 9:07
So this is a picture of Gilbert mullet. I think it is prime. And obviously it was he and his mother that started the store. But I think Gilbert was probably the driving force behind the business. His mother was suppose Mr. Mullins had a post office right in it and his mother was the postman just for quite a long time, you recall was 20 or 30 years right up until she died. So she was she was supposed to Mr. Sarin store and a new round of business. And they say he must be a very capable businessman because you're at some of the things that he had to deal with. He started to start a night when he was 21. And seven years later World War One started the same year he was paralyzed with polio and confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life. And I think 28 then died at 60. So 32 years. I don't know how Saltspring was affected with the Spanish flu, but worldwide that flu killed the three to 5% of the population. And in 1980, maybe 1000 1500 people living on Saltspring, if 30 or 40, or 50 people were dead, that would be a significant impact on does anybody know how the Spanish was affected?

Unknown Speaker 10:42
Then Gilbert had to deal with the depression and that that was 10 Miserable years for a retailer, I would imagine, and then capped off with World War One or World War Two. And you know, this is that entity died. So I mean, these are significant events in the life of a store. Since I've been here in 1999. That might be my big issue was when we transferred over to y2k and the Vietnam issue that we're still using. So

Unknown Speaker 11:10
but that's all I've experienced. So this is what kind of look like when Gilbert died.

Unknown Speaker 11:17
Fight the filthy vote for you this is that this is a few chat in here. And most store, this was supporting. This was last Friday, by Dr. Elliott. This was sick time these machine shop and that's Dave, Manson and Tom bobbing around that machine. As a tenant. This was a workshop and power house and this could have been the butcher shop, I guess in the 1930s or maybe maybe even living there, where the treehouse. This is Mrs. Turner store, which was later became the white elephant and Ganges crest and then the connector restaurant. When I came here in 1977, Turner store was kind of over here where chocolates is so this was a soft thing on trading company building. And they're designing chips but basically this was this was the property after here.

Unknown Speaker 12:32
Okay, so when Gilbert died in 1946, his three sons took over Laurie Cullen and Mac and eventually really quickly, column left and went into real estate, leaving Lori and Matt to run the store until 1969. And I like to leave

Unknown Speaker 12:54
though pasados is both Peggy Johnston and this is about her dad and your uncle will.

Unknown Speaker 13:03
Gilbert was a keen businessman and his time at work frequently involved his social life. He never put business ahead of friendships or is concerned for someone else's needs. This latter characteristic could well pose a threat to the financial status of business over the years without the watchful eye of his older brother will. They had a firm partnership and were totally dependent on each other's performance, forming a good basis for a solid business. And very, very often will seem to be overlooked in in with OneVoice. But he joined the business said two years after started in 1999. And I think he was there until the 50s well into the 50s. So he was probably 45 years with this store. When you think of Gilbert was 39 years 45 years and you're gonna play to hear about Laurie fellow on the right was there for 44 years, you can get a sense that this store was really an important institution for his family. I'd like to read another little thing. Charles Booker and this has to do with Gilbert as well. This is a fairly horrible as it was obviously one of Gilbert's admirers that Gilbert most was the patriarch of Saltspring. He became an effect all things to all men. He handed out lumber orders he handled financing. All forms of power ran through Gilbert molars hands. Very few men in that position would have handled that type of power as tolerantly as deep as this is. And Charlie went on to describe the store. DJ Khaled was the head of the largest business on the island. Both but his limited a general store. That was really more of a community emporium and a story. You could buy groceries and shoe polish parts harness and black and blacksmith tool, blankets and furniture or a cemetery lock or a farm complete with stock. Everything was available at most others were encouraged storytime There you go. Oh yeah that sounds very good party in addition that he gave Barton so large and bold compiling and the finance the largest while they were getting their timber ready bullets that is also sold hunting and fishing licenses registered births and deaths and bought and breeding dates from local farmers as well as beef lamb and foul. You see that Harvey draw breath and salting out without getting involved with my boy, wouldn't that be neat today so they did caskets and they did the burials to fix that they were a Ford dealership from 1913 until into the 40s This This photo was when Mack about the Imperial oil plant opposite the store at random This is the 1970s I would be curious whether anybody in the room knows all this that's a truce on the on the left atrium and in the middle of Deputy Fire Chief Bruce's at the back up but compared with 35 or 40 years and and back on. I was going to get a copy of the book away for the winter there but I think Nina she will be the

Unknown Speaker 16:42
has always been very heavily involved in the commercial real estate market on focusing on that particular part of the business tip on putting the piece important during the Mac and Lori's time. Although this picture was taken in the 1950s you could cover the cars whatever you want to draw your attention to here was this building that they built for the Bank of Montreal and they leased that to the Bank of Montreal and in time the bank bought that piece of property and that's the current location on that very piece of property and there were other there were other real estate activities done by Lori and Matt in 1955 they sold this part of Gracepoint oil I don't know the exact year but as part of their love they knocked down the boarding house granting boarding house and built that building for assaulting lands and they built the least this road right here to build health when I was talking earlier about Jane Mo and and the children and the daughter that died this piece of property out here is the face point this is very this was named after their young daughter that died and her name was Ray So at one time all of us have had that property

Unknown Speaker 18:22
assignment I think that's the side effect. I can't How do you back that up

Unknown Speaker 18:33
I think it is the side effect

Unknown Speaker 18:40
apprentice.

Unknown Speaker 18:58
I just want to reach out as real estate West when Laurie and Mack are running. At most remained a large land owner, owner and Saratoga and rentals form an important part of his revenue. For example more 1961 Year End statements contain the following rental schedule for cottages the post office that means the telephone company, the island, the RCMP Saltspring lands the Bank of Montreal. It fires off a taxi stand at the library, bunker hills and the Imperial oil these 1650 properties the total rent collected for this 1960 was $13,746. We knew that in less than a week now.

Unknown Speaker 19:48
There's a few changes taking place again. This is a subtle one that if you upgrade here in 1960. The Department of Highways started filling in for Again, he's Harbor. And that's the current location of the fire hall. And there was a bit more activity going on, by way of harbor feeling. That was the start of the treaty prefilling projects here in 1965, is both bass and you can sort of see the area that's being dredged. And the breakwater for all the built in here was stuck here lawful for Ganges really in the 1960s that became Centennial Park.

Unknown Speaker 20:41
Back to the oil because this is more likely if you could just imagine that the park was there in 1960s. We both looked at 1969 but they totally bought the company from Lorien Mac addict ran a company for only two years, but they were very active. Kevin Yes, let me hear it right here. Yes. Now consisted of devise and the Bank of Montreal here's the here's the old building, the selfing land building, I guess. You can't see it. But in the bottom of the screen, the tariff had to say here. They realized that imports in the village of Ganges we're going to survive, they would have to expand and grow. There was pressure to relocate existing businesses including food stores, banks and the post office to upper Ganges or to Central Park it had always been a problem and what happened he provided somehow decided to solve this problem by filling in the mud plastically mullets and what had been Mrs. Turner store and made his way out. In his first busy year they also purchased purchased the Saltspring on a trading company and is building as well as the white elephant restaurant building. A year and a half later, the company had filled in the shallow backwater behind the firewall and Ganges and has purchased the ship anchor in the historic building across the street and the horse race extending across the paperboy so so this is the basically what what they're talking about here but the salting on trading company and this was the competitor to bullet set originally and he bought that business and they end up in behind the trees here was the Turner store or the the white elephant restaurant and this was the the ships anchor in and that's currently going undergoing a renovation that due to open anytime now. Another restaurant inequity and Bob was mentioning this is the lumberyard lumber up from here they had this not very secure lumber yard for a little while that had no fence around it but nonetheless people were talking more on what they ended up with here was the Ford store right that came right from this corner all the way over to Molex and so this gave him the ability to fill in this part of the highway

Unknown Speaker 23:23
sorry how do I back that up

Unknown Speaker 23:37
on the right one, we had the one that

Unknown Speaker 23:43
does a great job. So 1970 They hired to take action where to come up with a plan for for the property. And this is what I came up with instead of keeping it under wraps like people do now they put it in the newspaper and it's amazing how accurate or how closely they followed along this plan here's purpose road coming down bullet says there this building part again decided to go in this picture has turned out to be this is the harbor building. There are no buildings in here that's parking and rather than two buildings is one building here and that's tricky but by and large this has been a very nice blueprint for 20 years.

Unknown Speaker 24:53
In 1970 71 deck filled in the harbor Summon, from the back of the fire hall, as we say, up in front of the ship tanker in over two bullet says, and this would become home building in the harbor building, Center building. And here this is 1971. You can see construction started on the heart of the building

Unknown Speaker 25:22
now, apparently in 1971 never really felt well suited to running and convinced his brother Tom to take over the head of the firm. And Tom did that and ran mullets for almost 30 years, 29 years. And during that time, he built six buildings, renovated three or four buildings. And in doing so he really did change the face of the village. And I think very positively. And some of these buildings, just go through some of these buildings. And this is a very fuzzy picture and, and not very flattering. But this is what the Harvard building looked like. Originally, this was built for vandrie office and who sir, says lucky. And after Ben sold the business to Ken, Ken Cooper and Rob large became the KNR food store, and latterly the Ganges Village Market and gvn. But it's just nice to see, you know what the building looks like. In 1971, again, in 1971 built this purpose building, cloud base to the West of the Moon. This was the site of the original granting boarding house. And this is a parade. I think this is the occasion of festival It's 90th birthday, so that was 10 years ago. We're hoping to have another frame in August 1976. Build the lumberyard up on Rainbow Road. And the first argument about Lumberyard was public industries and more than half of companies have an industry. And they operated that business I guess, maybe for 10 years until the late 80s. They sold the business first to which apply within a year or two they just sold the building and when they're so worth building.

Unknown Speaker 27:34
And making it to the Ganges Center building was built. This was for the post office and for the CIBC. And at this point Tom has been running the business for 10 years and he built at least four pretty significant buildings in the building. And he was just getting started. In 1982, just a second 1987 The Jessie tiny buildings were built and they were built on Laura Ganges road and Herford road and they were built for the credit union to subscribe and saving. And saving the since moved in this building, rebuilding the two of them they're named after addicted Matson and Tom's mother. First time I knew it was

Unknown Speaker 28:27
the name, we haven't got the name up on the building. This is not an ideal building for retail. This is perfect for the credit union, it sort of sits about seven or eight feet off the sidewalk and 10 or 15 feet back and it's got a bit of presence for a bank or something like that. But for retail, you know you want to have people doing window shopping and takes them out of the way. And there's also a fault in that building which becomes a certain space for most people. So something has to be done in that building. At some point. Maybe we'll change it to my mother

Unknown Speaker 29:10
in law, building obviously tremendous asset to all the businesses in the village and then the 1994 this was this building was the top of the building. That was the line. Part of the building. This area was added in 1984. Tom did a renovation to this building and he stayed very consistent with the original design in 1911. And this particular building won an award for the best commercial development in Victoria new state board in 1994. And it is a beautiful building. It does also at the same time on renovated A lot screenshot into into bullet small and that's where Pegasus gallery and Volume Two and restaurants are rebuilt in Chamber of Commerce offices. And in addition to the real estate, he did other things with regard to the retail part of our business. In 1988, when the GBM moved up to upper Ganges he renovated that building and he moved both clothing which was up on top of the third floor. He gave it its own location in the harbor building. It can we did the same with old salty, moving it from the main floor of the Harvard heartbreak building over to the harbor building. That'd be a wonderful move for both of those businesses, they first in their own locations. And at the same time, we opened up a lot of space for for the hardware stores with staff.

Unknown Speaker 31:08
We've had this uncovering.

Unknown Speaker 31:21
What probably hired in 2000. This is what Dante's looked like this was what properties look like. You could put that other side on there at the same time. Like you said, we went together

Unknown Speaker 31:43
so I'll put these buildings out for you. This was the building that we just looked at. This was a software company building. And these are the Jessie tiny buildings here and they're the only buildings that are on this side of Florida and he's got everything else that we have. On the other side. Here's the fire hall, which does not own besides the Ganges Center building to the post office and CIBC. mullets does not own the Bank of Montreal, they have their own property, but this is the purpose building. The old store and the mall here, this is our harbor building and building it in total. This works out to me we all nothing anymore on that side of the road. In total, this is 76,580 square feet is probably represents a quarter of the space

Unknown Speaker 32:51
and now show some of our store managers. These are really the face of most of the people and it's the folks on their staff. That amounts of 50 on part time staff right now that that really make the company as we said earlier, a very good company. This is a very fall and barber house, married. And this is that most voting formerly most voting was upstairs in the hardware building and somebody barber barber retired in 1985. And Mary joined the company and developed the store. They had the plan for it. They had the idea and I think Tom is being a winner. Barbara Mary's been with us for 19 years.

Unknown Speaker 33:47
19 more American bosses Mary who joined in 1984 and 1982. And she's now 25 years with the company. She's our longest serving employee. And as you can see, she's ready for a fifth time she manages the old salty and she can overcome Dorothy Brown and we have a great time here and the customers love that story. So

Unknown Speaker 34:24
this is a nice story. We've had several managers of the harbor traffic actually when they ran the business that was the first time that a manager with Bodhi to run the business I think part of that category and Mac rounds rather themselves and Gilbert Bennett itself but it brought in Spencer Morris, the first manager the hardware store.

Unknown Speaker 34:48
That's your son Ken, with your fiber colons and Spencer with an equation that the cat can become Barbara Harrison And that loads, got into his own account, accounting practice here and yada. And they then hired Ian Brown, and I think was probably with the store close to 20 years. And Ian was a retail manager store manager in Alberta and his wife Brandon, also worked at the store and manage the salty shop, which was sort of a little confection for newspapers and novelties in the hardware store. After Ian Brown taken Barker son in law, however, it took over management of the store. And I'm not exactly sure how long they're past 10 years. And when he left Ben Martens took his job and then I was here for for Ben and after Ben was when he went off to join the husband and the auto parts you know, there's been there's been people running this hardware store but Kevin David came to me when when when he was looking to leave and we came with a plan of how they could run the store and they're gonna do it together as full managers and things like that. And it was a very impressive plan. And Kim has been with Molex for I think 14 years and David for five and David this is a very nice story he joined us as a student come over after school regardless cardboard and then after graduation he joined us full time and three years later he's running the place he just turned 44 last month and so we have 40 more years of David

Unknown Speaker 36:55
welcome to small market with that small marketing that means that more can be a little bit more unique and more first of all, perhaps Walmart for the big box stores is because of the support that was done

Unknown Speaker 37:13
here so on behalf of the past and present people associated with Melissa thank you so that's the end of the presentation if you have

Unknown Speaker 37:26
well I want to remind you that there's a bunch of calendars here as well except 19,007 calendar and in honor of our anniversary about 50 or so over here each year Welcome to our calendar snapshots I also have three or four books

Unknown Speaker 37:51
already one can anybody tell me how many children

Unknown Speaker 38:10
stepchild well I think very nice story before we even realize was not

Unknown Speaker 38:29
a connection with all this why right

Unknown Speaker 38:49
you'll notice that it's your pocket

Unknown Speaker 38:58
a significant development when you click on the Home Library franchise in the in the 80s or the 1981 or even two and at that point, it has been ace and Tim, blankets, things like that. But I think they got bought by foam and it's been a real success story for us because without being part of that franchise, we couldn't really compete with anybody. We now have the home hybrid thing in our care 11 or 1200 stores across Canada. It gives you some new series buying buying power. So saw saw with us to do $5 Does anybody have any questions like like her body or Peggy or Lori? Anybody? obviously have a wonderful success story. 100 years is way too cheap.

Unknown Speaker 39:55
You didn't explain how the boys first arrived on the island or the prior to setting up the stores, where I'll briefly say

Unknown Speaker 40:05
that was done a few months ago, they had like they have more presentation here. This is meant to be for the store. But I think Jamie and Tom both came to the Shetland Islands in 1978 and 77 do hair for a few years, take the Saltspring I think in 1985, so they suddenly moved to the Nymo from the Shetland Islands and maybe next year, 1883 years, they came down and bought a piece of property up here, throw off the Copeland's and they had that that was the family farm system on the left hand side, where Matthew and Phyllis Coleman live. And I think now Charlie eagle has that property and the time is the time these came Jesse more it was after brace died that younger Odessey one within the next youngest in the town to Vegas. And decline the father was coming over here to visit his brothers who were living up on the cranberry area and, and happened to Jesse on the same wagon that was going up and this is a building thing very. So he moved here and maybe the only hard working was hierarchy in the bunch, but he was a machinist and everything else but he

Unknown Speaker 41:30
came over in addition anyway and they got him the weather teacher in February. So when she got off the ground I've been very, very, very wise. They built their house at the end of Churchill road. And they did. It's a beautiful piece of property. And they did it they built that before there was a road there and they bought the lumber in boats and things like that. But they had to have that house built before before they could get married. So it's a really battle

Unknown Speaker 42:26
I think that was a real Jesse was nice. Yeah, I guess I never met fixed by the by the new mother. Well, she was a great one. But I think that was the way the way the bullets were I mean that there was no drinking. I mean, the game, I guess when they watched the store from knocking the purpose as some fighters they're out there and that cider was out and things like that. So let's do this. This thing with Gilbert that you know, the roaring 20s Probably just went right by they didn't even notice those. But I guess a family of people and perhaps having that house built before you were married is very important. Okay, thanks very much.