Meet top Brooks student Eva Mosely

Racism prevented her chosen career and marriage; instead, the Cranberry resident volunteered, ran a print shop and lived common-law

Joëlle Sévigny

Blast from the Past

Black History Month occurs in Canada every February, and invites all Canadians to learn more about Black Canadians and to celebrate their achievements as well as their contributions. One well-known Black Canadian in Powell River’s history, is Eva Lavina Mosely. Born on Saltspring Island in 1918, Eva moved with her family to Cranberry while she was still in Elementary School.

Her father George Mosely was of African, European, and Hawaiian ancestry. Born in Virginia he was raised by his grandmother who worked as a domestic. He worked jobs in various cities across America and eventually landed in Victoria. There he met Eva’s mother, Martha, who was the grand-daughter of an English settler and a Cowichan woman who had homesteaded on Saltspring Island.

The Mosely family in the 1940s: left to right, Grace Estelle Hudson (née Mosely) Martha Lavina Mosely (Eva’s mother) and Berniece Virginia Steele ( née Mosely).

Photos courtesy of the qathet Museum & Archives

Eva herself was born on Saltspring Island and moved with her family to Victoria as a young girl. She had two sisters: Bernice and Grace. Not long after, they relocated to Parryville in Cranberry where her father looked for work at the Powell River mill. Every day for months, George Mosely went to the mill gates with a friend who was Filipino, and another dozen others in the hope of getting casual work. Everyday different men got work, but never Mosely or his friend. It wasn’t until a year later that someone showed them a union contract that stated that Orientals and African-Americans were barred from employment. Later the family moved to the Shingle Mill and then moved again to what was then called the China Block on the Wildwood Hill.

Eva Mosely (second row, second from left) with her graduating class at Brooks Secondary School, in about 1935.

Photos courtesy of the qathet Museum & Archives

While living at the China Block, George and Martha separated and a year later, her father left town. Eva, her mother and sisters moved back to Cranberry and rented a house on Graveyard Hill. They stayed there for a few years until Eva’s mother couldn’t afford the rent. They then moved to a little house that Eva called “the shack” off Drake Street. It was in that house, where Eva’s mother operated a small restaurant specializing in hot tamales and fried chicken, that Eva also worked as a babysitter to supplement her mother’s income.

Max Cameron, the principal of Brooks school, paid Eva’s school fees when her mother couldn’t afford it and he encouraged her to pursue her dream of becoming a surgery nurse. Eva graduated from Brooks High School with top grades, however, she was prevented from being accepted into nursing school because of the colour of her skin (this was common practice by Universities at the time, who thought that having Black students would hurt their reputations). Still hoping to help others, Eva worked for numerous charities throughout her life and was a dedicated volunteer at the Hospital ECU.

Later in life, Eva also fell in love with Jack Hanna, an American who was a logger and a wrestler. Together they went on to own and operate Quality Printers in Cranberry. The two wanted to get married, but no minister in town would allow mixed marriages. Although there wasn’t a specific law banning interracial marriage in Canada, the stigma was very much alive within society. In the United States it was legalized only in 1967. Eva and Jack thus lived the rest of their lives together in their house on Nootka Street as common-law partners.

Blast from the Past is written monthly by qathet Museum and Archives Programs & Education Manager Joëlle Sévigny.

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