Quesnel, Lowell oral history interview

Lowell Quesnel was a barber who later became a real estate agent in New Westminster. He moved to New Westminster with his family from Williams Lake in 1946, when he was 13 years old. Quesnel attended St. Peter’s School (grade 6-9) and Duke of Connaught High School (located where New West city hall is now located). He dropped out in grade 12 and took a job at Pacific Veneer on the waterfront. He also worked as an “ice man” at the Queen’s Park arena, before buying his father’s barbershop at Joyce Road (now Joyce Street) at Kingsway in Vancouver for $800. He sold the barbershop approximately a year later (in 1955) for $1600. He then went to work for his father in Elks Barbershop on Carnavon St in New Westminster.1 One summer, when he was 15 or 16 years old, Quesnel and his brother worked at Pacific Coast Terminals (PCT) labelling salmon and stencilling boxes. Quesnel continued working as a barber until the emergence of The Beatles phenomenon of the 1960s, which led to the popularity of long hair for men. Business at the barbershop was so slow that Quesnel decided to work in real estate.