In 1917, as World War I dragged on into its third year of bloody battles, Gibsons Landing was the scene of a turning point in Canadian history. James Shaver Woodsworth left his career as a Methodist minister and looked for a more effective way to champion the cause of working people.
"For me, the teachings and spirit of Jesus are absolutely irreconcilable with the advocacy of war," Woodsworth wrote of his decision to leave the church.
His new path led to the establishment of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) and ultimately to its successor, the New Democratic Party.
Gibsons was a remote outpost in the wilderness then, and J.S. Woodsworth was an idealistic Methodist missionary who vehemently opposed the war and supported the local co-op store. Those were radical political positions at that time, and Woodsworth was loathed by some of Gibsons' conservative English pioneers, such as William Winn, who suspected him of socialist tendencies. Winn tried not only to have Woodsworth removed from the mission but also to have his wife Lucy fired from her teaching job.
But Woodsworth found a fellow spirit in Gibsons: Dr. Fred Inglis, pioneering physician and socialist. Inglis was friendly with Gibsons' Finnish immigrants and held weekly meetings in the basement of his home, Stonehurst, to discuss philosophy and socialist ideas.
When Winn parted ways with the Methodist church, he and Lucy were left with only her tiny teaching income to support their six children and had to leave the mission manse that had been their home. Inglis welcomed the whole family into Stonehurst, where he and his wife Alice were raising their own six children. A lifelong friendship grew between the two families.
The 125-pound, Oxford-educated Woodsworth went to work as a longshoreman on the rough docks of Vancouver, honing his political ideas as he laboured to support his family.
In 1919 he rose to prominence as a spokesman for working people during the Winnipeg General Strike. In 1921 he was elected to parliament for the first time.
Inglis lived out his life in Gibsons, sharing his medical practice with his son Hugh in later years. He continued to support radical projects, such as the foundation of a local credit union that lives on as the Sunshine Coast Credit Union.
This lively chapter of Gibsons history is well represented in the collections of the Sunshine Coast Museum and Archives in Gibsons. One museum display contains two beds, one built by Fred Inglis and the other a Woodsworth family heirloom brought from England.
The museum also possesses a collection of Inglis' medical and dental instruments and books from his library, complete with the doctor's pencilled notations in the margins. It's easy to imagine these books at the centre of the weekly "meeting of the pundits" at Stonehurst when Inglis, Woodsworth and the fiery Finns discussed politics and philosophy.
The two families' connections to the Sunshine Coast continue as well. Last week, several members of the second generation who live on the Coast gathered at the museum to look over some of their family treasures and reminisce.
Lenora Inglis, the widow of Eric Inglis and a Gibson by birth, has lived on the Sunshine Coast all her life. She joked that it was natural for her father-in-law to shelter the Woodsworth family at Stonehurst: "We were always taking in strays."
She remembered how the credit union got its start in Stonehurst as well, with 14 members.
"In those days we were into everything, to make it go," she said.
Vivian Woodsworth is the widow of Ralph Woodsworth, the son of J.S. She and Ralph moved back to the Sunshine Coast in 1973. She was very clear about J.S. Woodsworth's legacy: "J.S. was never a communist. He was a socialist," she said.
"Several times he attempted to resign [from the Methodist church] because of their attitude toward the war. Finally they accepted his resignation. It was certainly a matter of very strong principle."
Vivian Woodsworth re-told the story of J.S.'s daughters hiding his political books and papers when he was in jail during the Winnipeg Strike and his family was still living at Stonehurst in Gibsons.
"He got in touch with Lucy and said, all the papers he had, to please hide them now," she remembered.
"Lucy was busy, so she gave the job to Grace and Kathleen. They put them in a box, dug a hole or put them under some brush. It was apparently a very frightening situation."
Sylvia Woodsworth, widow of Bruce Woodsworth, another of J.S.'s sons, moved to the Sunshine Coast with her husband in 1976.
"Bruce loved this area," she said. "He felt Gibsons was a spiritual home."
But even in the '70s, Gibsons had become too built-up for his taste.
"We went to Pender Harbour, which was more rugged and like Gibsons used to be," Sylvia Woodsworth said.
The families have produced many remarkable and talented people: Ralph Woodsworth was a renowned anesthetist, Bruce a famous geologist, and their sister Grace MacInnis was B.C.'s first woman member of parliament.
While proud of their family history, J.S.'s descendants have mixed feelings about the path Canadian socialism has taken.
Sylvia remains a stalwart NDP activist. Vivian still retains her party membership but said her husband Ralph got fed up and quit the NDP when it was under Glen Clark's leadership.
"He was a socialist, no question about that but he died without rejoining the party," she said. "He was just discouraged with the party at that time."
The years when the Inglis and Woodsworth families shared Stonehurst live on in family stories as a magical time. The 12 children jokingly drew a line through the house to separate the two families, but they established lasting friendships, as did their mothers, Lucy and Alice.
"The astonishing thing to me isn't that the children got along - children usually do - but that the two mothers of six children remained friends," commented Vivian Woodsworth.
