Interview with Lewis Thatcher

Audio recording and transcript of Lewis Thatcher's 1979 interview with Myrtle Bergren for the Coal Tyee History Project. Throughout the interview, Thatcher gives details about his family's history, including his mother and father's separate arrivals on Vancouver Island. He talks about the family farm in South Wellington, and about nearby mining railways. Thatcher shares his opinion about the red-light district in Nanaimo, and about the death of Louis Stark near Extension. At different points in the interview Thatcher explains how early settlers in South Wellington took a case to the Privy Council to retain their coal rights despite the land grant given the the Esquimalt & Nanaimo Railway. Thatcher talks about different jobs he had, and he also gives details about different company and private coal-mining operations near South Wellington. Thatcher reflects on the Vancouver Island Coal Miners' Strike, outlining impacts in the communities of Extension, South Wellington, and Ladysmith. Having been married to two women of Finnish descent, Thatcher shares details about the Finnish community in Nanaimo. He tells an anecdote about an interaction between Elizabeth Fiddick and James Dunsmuir, and he also shares his own recollections about both Dunsmuir and Nanaimo's first mayor, Mark Bate. To conclude the interview, Thatcher comments on his father's background and how different his life on Vancouver Island was from his life in England.