Welcome

In February 1942, in the middle of a world war, Joanne Cornelia Bader married James Edward Lowe in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Joanne (Jo) was born in Holland; James (Jim) in England—both immigrated to the new world as children with their families in the 1920s.

Members of Joanne's large family (there were 13 children) moved to the Pacific Northwest where they operated family-run bakeries and eventually a large cookie factory called Bader's Dutch Bakeries Ltd.

Jim's parents came to Canada as homesteaders and were sent to the Peace River region of British Columbia. James Alfred Dawson Lowe and Isabella Rochester Pickles and their four children (Eileen, Jim, Vincent and Harry) built a cabin in Dawson Creek and learned to work the land. Jim Sr. and Isabella (Isabel or Belle) moved to Vancouver in 1935 with their three teen-aged boys.

By 1937, young Jim had enlisted in the army reserves in the British Columbia Regiment (Duke of Connaught's Own). When war broke out in 1939, Jim joined the Royal Canadian Navy.

We don't know how Jim and Joanne met for certain but the two families lived in the same neighbourhood and were Catholic. So they might have met at church, but it's just as likely that Jim became friends with one of Joanne's brothers (she had 10) and they were introduced that way.

When Jim was transfered by the navy to the east coast in 1942, Jim and Joanne married so that she could accompany him.

After the war Jim and Joanne had six children. I am one of those children.

I'd always been interested in my family's history and enjoyed hearing stories about the past and looking at old photographs. But that's as far as it went. I thought that when I retired, I might do some research into my family. But fate intervened and without any intention I became immersed in genealogy, not only years earlier than expected but also to a degree that was totally unexpected. One question released a passion for family history that I didn't know existed.

This website is the result of that passion. Data has been compiled using original documents, genealogy databases, and research supplied by relatives. Biographies are comprised of that data combined with family stories and historical research.

My hope for this project and this website is to preserve the stories of our ancestors and provide a link to our shared pasts as well as a potential connection to long-lost relatives.