On Thursday March 22, the Vancouver Historical Society will host a lecture by author Eve Lazarus on Blood, Sweat, and Fear: the Story of Inspector Vance, Vancouver’s First Forensic Investigator. The talk is at 7:30pm at the Museum of Vancouver. All are welcome and entrance is by donation.
Vance’s experiments with odours cemented his reputation as Canada’s Sherlock Holmes. PROVINCE, JULY 7, 1934.
Eve Lazarus has developed a kind of trademark: a reference to an interesting character in a newspaper clipping or directory prompts research in public archives followed by a painstaking search for descendants, leading to a trove of almost-forgotten historical material that allows her to bring the past alive.
The extraordinary tale of John F.C.B. Vance, who independently developed forensic science techniques and became known across North America in the 1920s and 1930s as "Canada's Sherlock Holmes," is one example. She first noticed him at the 1944 murder scene of 24-year-old Jennie Conroy in West Vancouver when she was writing her 2015 bestseller Cold Case Vancouver.
She found his granddaughter, who had his daughter's scrapbook, then cardboard boxes full of photographs, clippings and case notes in another grandchild's garage on Gabriola Island. She then needed a crash course in forensics and engaged the help of Douglas Lucas, the former head of the Centre for Forensic Science in Ontario. And so it went as she researched and wrote an original book weaving together Vancouver's history, its murderous underbelly, and an unsung good-guy who retired from the Vancouver Police Department almost 70 years ago.
History-writing in Vancouver and elsewhere has become more specialized, moving away from the idea of a master narrative into such genres as architecture, art, ethnic studies, fiction and true crime. It's been a dozen years or more since anyone attempted a comprehensive history of the city or the region, let alone a political history, reflecting the reality of book publishing and sales in the Internet age. Many of the working writer-historians in the city maintain blogs as a way of connecting with an audience and building appreciation for the city's past.
Eve's Every Place Has A Story blog is one of the better ones. She looks for local curiosities, anniversaries and seemingly minor events, then builds a portrait of time and place from them. For example, her recent post on the 60th anniversary of the "$1.49 Day, Woodward's" jingle connects readers to a time of locally owned department stores and an earlier era of downtown shopping. Regular readers get drawn in, and some will look further to develop a broad knowledge of the city's history.
Eve moved from her native Melbourne to Vancouver in the 1980s and worked for three years at the Vancouver Stock Exchange, where she witnessed Sun investigative reporter David Baines's exposés of fraudsters and scams. Getting qualifications from Langara's journalism program, she herself joined the staff of the Sun as a business reporter and continued until the demands of her growing family forced her to become a freelancer.
Her first book experience, abetted by her children aged two, five and eight, was a publication called Frommer’s with Kids Vancouver. But it was a trip back to Australia and a visit to the gold-rush city of Ballarat, where her grandparents had lived, that got her interested in the storytelling possibilities of old homes. On returning to Vancouver, she was inspired by Strathcona house-historian James Johnstone. She has been "hooked on history" ever since, writing At Home With History, Sensational Victoria, Sensational Vancouver, then Cold Case Vancouver and her new book on Vance entitled Blood, Sweat, and Fear.
Her books "talk about the people rather than the murder" as she tries to figure out what put them at the wrong place at the wrong time. "It's the mystery and puzzle of it," she says. As an author, she is happy for readers to enjoy the story "and if you learn history or pick up some science along the way—then that’s a bonus." On the popular-to-academic history spectrum, she's happy to be at the "popular" end. Her lectures, like her books, always draw a crowd.
When: Thursday March 22, 7:30 pm
Where: Museum of Vancouver (1100 Chestnut Street)
Visit the Facebook Event for more info HERE
About the Speaker: Eve Lazarus is a writer with a passion for non-traditional history and a fascination with murder. Her most recent book is Blood, Sweat, and Fear: the story of inspector Vance, Vancouver's first forensic investigator. Her previous books include the BC bestsellers Cold Case Vancouver: the city's most baffling unsolved murders (Bill Duthie Booksellers' Choice Award finalist) and Sensational Vancouver. Eve blogs at Every Place has a Story and curates a Facebook Page under the same title.
