“Mining was going strong in the early 1900’s - it was really booming. A lot of people died in the mines, including literally hundreds of Chinese, because they did not have the safety systems they have now. I was told they would save the donkeys before they would save the men.

“Grandfather went back to China to find himself a wife, and then returned to Cumberland to look after his business. Eventually he was able to bring his wife here; her name was Lowe Ponshee. He also married a girl in Victoria so he had two wives. With those two wives he had two or three daughters and eight sons - all born in Cumberland Chinatown. My mother Annie was one of the older daughters of that big Lowe (Lo) family. When the brothers were old enough they started Lowe Brothers store in Courtenay, down by the bridge. They had that store for over forty-five years. My mother Annie Leung started our store in Cumberland in 1929.

“My father, Leung Gang, came to Canada in 1914 and at that time there was a head tax of five hundred dollars. He had to borrow that money to get into the country and then he had to pay it back. He also had very little when he came here and worked at anything he could get. He went into the mines for a while but a rock come down and injured his leg. At that time there was no compensation and he never went back to mining, instead he started market gardening. His first farm was on Lake Trail Road in Courtenay. The land was owned by a Dr. Mallard, who told my dad that if he cleared the land, he could farm it, and that is what he did! He bought a horse and dynamite to clear the land. I do not know how many years it took him, because the property was all trees, but he managed to get some farm land out of it. He was there for quite a number of years but found that the frost was too heavy in that area so he bought another farm on Minto Road in the Happy Valley area.

“I helped after school and have worked from age twelve, right up until now. Just our own family and a caretaker worked on the farm. We had that store right up until 1999. When my mother did not want to run it anymore my brother John stepped in and ran it.

“Our family consists of two sisters and five brothers, I am the oldest one. We all worked with our father when we were young and in school. We would go to school, come home, and go to work. We all did it. You know, I never regretted that, not even to today.

“We did not live on the farm. Father had a gardener from China to help him when he had the ten acres in vegetables. He built a house on the farm for this farmer to live in; he was like a caretaker. He did the weeding and looked after the farm while Dad was out on the road. We would go out and help whenever we were able to.

“Starting in 1947 or 1948, after school I would drive out to Bevan and pick up the orders on a Tuesday and I would deliver them on a Thursday because there was no store in Puntledge or Bevan at that time. It was a real service for them and I knew I would eventually have a truck load of orders going into Bevan and Puntledge. That was where I really got to know the grocery business and I have been in it for fifty-five years now.

“Dad drove the vegetable truck most of the time but I would follow along to help out. When he had the market garden I was only about six years old and he would take me along, I was not much of a helper but I was there for company. He would service Puntledge, Bevan, and Lake Trail Road and almost into town - that was his route on Tuesday. On Wednesday he would go back to the farm and get his supplies, and on Thursday he would go to Royston, Union Bay, and even down as far as Buckley Bay and Fanny Bay. He would come home at eleven o’clock at night a lot of times. His business was a service. He would be at the McKay’s house, in Union Bay, at three in the afternoon and they knew that he would be there at that time because that was what he did, he kept a routine. He would drive up to the driveway and honk his horn and the ladies would come out and buy the vegetables. He would go to the next household and the next, all the way down to Fanny Bay. One night, when I was ten or twelve years old, somebody hit him over the head with a lead pipe or something and took his truck, and then somebody down at Fanny Bay drove him to the hospital. About three or four days later the police found the truck way down Island somewhere and he eventually got it back.

“We did not cash pay cheques for the miners. The Canadian Collieries mining company would issue them a chit, a piece of paper with a number and a name on it, and they would take that chit to the bank. They would hand in the chit and the bank would have their envelopes of money ready for them. That was the way miners were paid back then. There was a Royal Bank in Cumberland, and there was even a Bank of Commerce there.

“Cumberland was the busiest area because Courtenay was not really that big or established yet. The Leung family has been here and served the community for a long time. We lost a lot of money along the way because the miners worked from paycheck to paycheck and lots of times we had to carry them for credit. Those who had big families could never catch up and we lost thousands of dollars helping them out. They paid what they could but you can not get blood from a stone. We were not the only store; there were quite a few small stores in Cumberland and Courtenay and one in Bevan, and everyone catered to the miners. They were the working people, the ones who were raising their families, and I am sure most of the other stores had to carry them like we did. Those were all small stores, all trying to make a living and all feeding the communities. Father raised his own vegetables and I think that may be a part of the reason that we managed to survive.

“When we had the market garden on Minto Road we were supplying Overwaitea and Safeway with vegetables. We were gathering vegetables until about ten o’clock at night, working in the moonlight. We did not have much time to go and play because father needed us so much. I would come home for lunch and practically work the lunch hour at the store. I would take maybe five or ten minutes to grab a bit of something to eat and go back to school. After school, we would have something to eat and dad would take us out to the farm to help him weed the gardens, or I would be working in the store and serving customers after school. When I was old enough to run the tractor I would be ploughing the field and Dad would be planting corn or something. On Minto Road he had ten acres that we planted and we had a very good garden. He grew everything from corn to lettuce, beats, carrots, turnips, and potatoes. That whole ten acre range was all in plots. It was a blow for Cumberland when the mines started closing down. A lot of the stores had a real tough time. We lost a lot of people because they had to leave town to find jobs, and we could not blame them. The only reason we are still here is because we had a business and made a living with the store and the market garden.

“We had a full life - we were very, very lucky. I can say that now but when I was young I did not know anything - never appreciated anything. When I stop to think about all the upbringing that we had, I see that we were very lucky kids. We might not have had time to go and play like some of the other kids but we never had time to get into trouble, either. We did not have any money to buy toys; we would scrounge an old tire, crawl inside and someone would roll it down the street! We would have a bag of marbles to play marbles with, and we would make stilts out of wood and walk around on them.

“We were brought up as Christians with a Missionary lady from the Anglican Church who gave us our teaching of the Christian religion. Mrs. Catherine Finch taught us everything and she was even willing to give me free piano lessons, but I was too stupid to take them then - now I have to pay! This lady could teach us anything! She could play the piano, teach us singing, teach the girls how to crochet, knit, or basket weave. She had a men’s choir going in Cumberland. She would come to Chinatown every day and on Sundays they would give us our Sunday Service.

“Mrs. Catherine Finch is a very famous lady. All our kids know Mrs. Finch. We were closely associated with her; she helped many of our people get their naturalization papers and did different things for them. She was a great lady. When she retired and they moved her to Glacier View Home I would go up there once a week to bring her down to have supper with us and then take her back after supper. She was part of our lives, almost like family – a great, great lady. She is gone now; we have lost a lot of good people but that is the way life is.

“My father had a lot of foresight and knew that eventually the business street would come up to our area, and we were part of the reason why he bought and built there. We still do free deliveries. For all the years we have been here we have had phone-in service and free delivery.

“When Dad passed away the farm was in limbo for about twenty years and finally my son, who is a woodwork teacher at Cape Lazo, said he would like to buy the farm. He built his own house there and he is living their now, so it is still in the family.

“My brother John and his wife retired in 1999. Leung’s was one of last of the original stores in Cumberland to close. They sold it to a couple in Cumberland and they ran it into the ground in five or six months. When John had it he had nice clientele and everything. John tried to help the new owners; he stayed for a whole month, to show the people how to run it the way he did, so they could make a living at it. The building is still there but we do not own it anymore. I do not know who owns it now. Several people have been in there; they put a laundromat in there, but it did not go, and they put in a coffee shop that did not go, and a video shop that did not go. I do not know what is in there now. It is so sad really.

“My first wife, Joyce, had a grandmother in Cumberland Chinatown so she came to visit. She was a very fine lady. She had the same education I had - just grade 12 that is all. She had a birthday the same day as mine; I was one year older than she was. She really was a good cook, maybe the best. She helped in making desserts for the coffee bar in the store - my banana cream pie and chocolate cream pie! I lost her in 1979; she had cancer. I was a widower for four years and finally I had to go out and find myself another lady! My wife, Lisa, is from Nova Scotia; she is my second wife. We have been married twenty-two years now.

“I have one daughter and two sons. My daughter is in Vancouver, one son works at Cape Lazo School, and one works in Woss. Anytime I want to take time off, one of the boys will come in and fill in for me; they are good to me. When they were in school my kids worked in the store off and on, but not too much. I did not need them then because at that time I was doing really well. This was in the late 1970’s and the early 1980’s when I had five checkout girls, three checkout stands, a meat department, and a coffee shop – my business was really booming. When all the big stores started coming in it cut me down, and I had to down size. I have not got the money to advertise like those guys.

“Everybody comes to me and asks, ‘When are you going to retire?’ I say ‘I love working.’ I love the people who come into the store and talk to me; it is so nice. If I retire and stay home, who will come to visit me? Nobody, it would be a drag unless I had something to do.”