A Perfect Childhood

“A Perfect Childhood—One Hundred Years of Heritage Homes in Nelson”

by Art Joyce

Published by the Kootenay Museum & Historical Society, ©1997 Art Joyce

ISBN#0-9680038-1-8

Available at Touchstones Museum of Art & History gift shop and Otter Books, Nelson BC.

https://touchstonesnelson.ca 

https://otterbooksinc.ca 

176 pages, gloss cover and coated stock “coffee table book” format, richly illustrated with historical and contemporary photographs and period artifacts, Bibliography and Index. 

A house is only as interesting as the people who live in it, who give it a life of its own. Using 14 different heritage homes, Joyce uses each as a lens through which to focus key events in the city’s early history. That means delving into the personal stories of pioneering Nelson residents, including: 

• The city’s first mayor and newspaper publisher John Houston

• Hockey pioneers the Patrick brothers 

• Wealthy mine managers J.J. Campbell and Henry Croasdaile

• Steamboat captain Frank Armstrong 

• Pioneering merchant, hotelier and provincial member of the Legislature Fred Hume

• Cominco (today Teck-Cominco or TECK) executive Selwyn Blaylock

• Frontier judge J.A. Forin

…and many more.

A favourite among Nelson history fans, A Perfect Childhood is based on research done by Joyce while serving as heritage columnist for the Nelson Daily News from 1996–2000. For his popular column Heritage Beat, the author wrote some 250,000 words on Nelson and West Kootenay history.