Stewart, Don oral history interview

Don Stewart was born at St Mary’s Hospital in New Westminster in 1944, and had six siblings. He was the son of a mill worker at MacMillan Bloedel, who was also a caretaker at Spring Ranch located in the Connaught Heights area of New Westminster. It was called Spring Ranch because it had its own “artesian well” or spring that generated two small pools that Stewart and his friends would swim in during the summer. The family lived on the ranch between 1944 and 1952, and Stewart’s descriptions of the city during the interview are mainly from the 1950s. The ranch was demolished during the building of the new Queensborough Bridge in 1960, and Stewart shares his perspective on the shift from what was a quiet Connaught Heights life to what is now the busy city of New Westminster.The interview was conducted as part of History 461 – Oral History Practicum at Simon Fraser University.