Islander

Compulsive gambling led Elfriede Lippa into bankruptcy at 91 after she ran through the better part of $300,000, mainly by remortgaging her paid-off Victoria condo. Her son and daughter say they were in the dark until it was far too late to help.

Wolfgang Paalen, a big-league European surrealist, and Emily Carr, the great Canadian modernist, met at her studio in Victoria in August 1939. This sounds like a momentous event.

This column first appeared in the Victoria Daily Times on July 29, 1939. There is a great body of opinion against the shipping of war material to Japan. A few days ago, I saw a petition, presented by a Chinese boy with pages and pages of names.

Judging by the upbeat atmosphere at Esquimalt’s Memorial Park on Tuesday night, quoting the lyrics of a classic Trooper song seems appropriate. Nearly 300 music lovers of all ages were there “for a good time, not a long time” from 6 to 7:30 p.m.

Canada’s largest summer lunch program, delivering free lunches on a daily basis for underprivileged kids attending subsidized summer camps in nine cities across Canada, launched last week in Victoria.

Project is progressing — years late and far over budget

A vision to make Oak Bay a destination for arts and culture continues this summer with four new pianos in public spaces painted by local artists.

From the new show at the Legacy, I expected nothing out of the ordinary — a survey of screen prints by eight First Nations artists from southern Vancouver Island.

This column first appeared in the Victoria Daily Times on July 22, 1939. If I wakened in the black middle of a soundless night in a hospital, I would know where I was.

Molly Lamb Bobak was a celebrated painter, the first woman to travel overseas as an official Canadian war artist, and a member of the Order of Canada. She was also mother and friend to Victoria author Anny Scoones.